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4.1.3.1 Individualized and Occasional Practices of In-community Monitoring
Because most of the organizations studied do not run systematic monitoring activities nor do they record hate crimes in a database, some interviewees understand monitoring to be an attempt to follow and understand the general menaces or violent incidents affecting a community. Normally, community leaders or committed individuals track cases within their community. Malika Abdoulvakhabova from the Rescue Foundation is one such example of a committed individual. She is very well informed about all cases of violence against Chechens and Ingushes in Poland for the past few years, yet her organization does not systematically monitor hate crimes or assist victims. Information about hate crimes comes directly from members of the Chechen diaspora in Poland or from the media.
The Kazakh Community is an organization that the victims frequently notify directly about cases of violence, even though the organization does not systematically document cases of discrimination or hate crimes. For instance, members of their community informed them that several dozens of sellers of different nationalities, including Armenians, Vietnamese, Africans and Chechens, were not allowed to enter the market on 13 February 2007 in Radzyń Podlaski, even though they had all necessary documents. (1) When the Kazakh Community attempted to intervene after a request for assistance from the Armenian community, their representative Balli Marzec said the police officers and representatives of the local authorities were not helpful. Unfortunately, this case was not well publicized in the media and no progress was made. There are many similar cases, but the organization does not have sufficient financial resources or knowledge to deal with them.
Activists from Polish Humanitarian Action, the organization that runs the workshop-based Humanitarian Education Program, are aware of local sites of tensions (that is, strained relations between subcultures or inter-religious conflicts over symbolic space). Such conflicts are especially common in youth environments. At vocational schools in Nowa Huta, a district in Kraków, students have openly expressed negative attitudes towards the local Roma community. The Polish Humanitarian Action itself is not involved in systematic monitoring, but the subject of hate crime is discussed during the organization’s educational activities, including themes such as organized far-right and neo-Fascist groups and Internet hate speech (like the Redwatch site). Materials exposing hate crime are also published in the PAH’s Internet newsletter Pomagamy as well as in paper version of the magazine for grammar schools. The bulk of information that PAH uses comes from the Brown Book published by Nigdy Więcej. In fact, Tadeusz Szczepaniak, the coordinator of Humanitarian Education, identified Nigdy Więcej as the only organization that systematically monitors hate crimes in Poland.
The Russian Cultural and Educational Association (RSKO) does not monitor hate crimes nor does it have a program for victims’ assistance, but victims of discrimination have repeatedly approached the organization. RSKO attempts to collect information related to acts of discrimination in the region in general (not merely against ethnic Russians). Information mainly comes from articles in the newspapers, but members of the organization, friends and colleagues also contribute to their sources. An example of an incident where the organization took action occurred on 25 November 2000, when two teenagers planted explosives on a recently renovated monument. The monument, which was partially destroyed in the event, commemorated Red Army soldiers who died in the area during World War II. The perpetrators were arrested on 11 December 2000. (2) Yet the police are reluctant to intervene in such cases, and it was only after the organization submitted complaints to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Parliamentary Commission on Minority Rights and the provincial administration that an investigation was launched.
1.The mayor had issued an order banning foreign merchants from entering a local market place. A local court ruled in December 2007 that the mayor’s decision was illegal. For more information regarding the incident, see: Nigdy Więcej. Brunatna Księga. See also: Nigdy Więcej, Nr. 16, zima-wiosna 2008. On the court’s decision see the website of the Kazach Community: Stowarzyszenie Wspólnota Kazachska 2007. Prawo burmistzra, 19 Dec 2007, Warsaw.
2. Nigdy Więcej. Katalog Wypadków Brunatna Księga; Nigdy Więcej, Nr. 13, wiosna 2003.
(OPP)
