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Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union (abbreviated UCSJ) is an umbrella organization of Jewish human rights groups working in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The UCSJ is based in Washington, D.C. and is linked to other organizations such as the Moscow Helsinki Group and it has offices in the countries where they operate.
The UCSJ was formed in 1970 as part of the Movement to Free Soviet Jewry, a response to the oppression of Jews in the Soviet Union and other countries of the Soviet bloc. Today, most of its offices are based within the United States where it has eight member councils. Additionally there are seven offices in various locations in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, including Moscow, Almaty, Bishkek, Lviv, Riga, Tbilisi and Minsk (although the latter was closed in 2005).
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Activities of the UCSJ include reporting on the human rights situation of countries in the former Soviet Union (FSU), as well as assisting communities in need, providing support for asylum seekers and migrants, exposing human rights violations and hate crimes, whether these are targeted against Jews or other minorities in the region, such as Roma or Muslims.
The UCSJ receives its funding from the European Commission of the European Union as part of a three-year project designed to combat racism, antisemitism and islamophobia in Eastern European countries. The reports it produces on the situation in various countries are often presented to the US State Department.
Some 525,000 Jews remained in the post-Soviet states in 2003. Almost 450,000 of them live in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova.[1]
Nineteen members of the State Duma from Motherland and the Communist party have signed a letter demanding Jewish organizations be banned in Russia. The letter referred to Judaism as a religion promoting ethnic hatred and made reference to the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch. In that regard, UCSJ made the following statement:
"The best example of how far some members of the national parliament are willing to go to demonize minorities came in January 2005, when 19 members of the State Duma from Motherland and the Communist party signed an open letter to the Prosecutor General’s office demanding that Jewish groups be banned in Russia. The letter referred to Judaism as a “Satanic” religion and made reference to the medieval Blood Libel (the belief that Jews ritually murder Christian children during Passover and use their blood to bake matzo). Russian Jewish groups—who have long ago grown accustomed to more modern-day antisemitic accusations of controlling the media, the financial system, etc.—reacted with horror to this intellectual descent into the barbarism of the Dark Ages". [2]
An investigation was launched.[3][4] The Prosecutor dropped charges of antisemitism against Duma deputies.[5]
UCSJ president Micah H. Naftalin condemned conviction of journalist Boris Stomakhin, who was accused of hate speech:
"This sentence exposes the underlying hypocrisy of the Russian government's half-hearted struggle against extremist groups and hate speech." "This month alone, the FSB refused to investigate the distribution of a neo-Nazi hit list containing the names and addresses of human rights activists whom the authors 'sentenced to death,' a publisher of a newspaper in Ulyanovsk who publicly called for the murder of Jews got a suspended sentence, and three youths who broke the jaw and fractured the skull of the Minister of Culture of the Kabardino-Balkaria Republic while screaming racist slogans were sentenced to just six months to a year in prison. You don't have to agree with Mr. Stomakhin's radical, though non-violent, views on Chechnya to see that his sentence was disproportionate and unjust." [6]
The statement if UCSJ on Boris Stomakhin also contained false accusation of Russian authorities, that they have broke Stomakhin's spine and bones during the arrest.[7]
However, it was established that Stomakhin tried to escape during his arrest and himself fell down from fourth floor of his building, according to his lawyer Alexei Golubev and news reports.[8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] His spine and bones were broken as a result.
UCSJ never apologized nor withdrawn their accusations.
The UCSJ alerted[17] the public to the revival of the cult of Russian Orthodox Church child saint Gavriil Belostoksky and related blood libel accusations in Belarus, after the Belarusian state TV showed a film alleging that his ritual murder was a true story.[18][19]
A branch of the UCSJ was closed by the government of Belarus as part of what many observers saw as a wider crackdown on political dissent in the region. (main article - Human rights in Belarus)