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4.1.4.1 Occasional Assistance to Victims of Hate Crimes
Even though none of the organizations run systematic specialized programs for victim assistance, realities of hate crime when experienced by different groups and communities make them find ways to take various steps towards temporary assistance. Unfortunately, most of these organizations lack the institutional structure, the financial resources or the personnel to carry out such tasks long term. The internal capacity of the organization dictates what kinds of actions are taken, as well as its ability to cooperate with other relevant institutions and organizations that may be helpful.
Interviewees from the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights stressed that their organization’s limited involvement in hate crime victim assistance was due to the foundation’s specific objectives, which are to strictly provide legal help on the grounds of human rights violations. As hate crimes are rather infrequent, victim assistance has not become a major component of their program. Zbigniew Hołda outlines the problem:
»As we are interested in supporting refugees, migrants and minorities in Poland, and the problem of hate crimes mostly concerns them, I suppose that our field is the legal aspect of hate crimes. […] HFHR’s migrant and minority programs do not include the monitoring of hate crimes and assistance to victims. […] Sometimes we need to provide legal assistance in cases of hate crimes, although, I repeat, we are a general human rights organization.«
As an example of the HFHR shows, an obstacle to more consistent and longterm involvement in hate crime monitoring may lie in the organization’s specific profile. Even though it gets involved in occasional legal assistance to victims of racist or xenophobic attacks against immigrants or other minority group members, HFHR’s staff does not specialize in this field. This proves that, on the one hand, general human rights organizations can certainly be potential partners in hate crime monitoring and victim assistance. On the other hand, there is still a need for organizations whose specific focus lies in this area, because this type of work involves organizational efforts that general human rights and anti-discrimination organizations may not be able to undertake, e.g. training in hate crime issues, an approach that focuses on antiracism and anti-Fascism, employment of specialized legal and psychological staff etc.
While victim assistance is not the primary focus of anti-Fascist organizations such as GAN in Piła and Nigdy Więcej, both groups have been involved in several cases. As described in GAN’s interventions above, the group successfully cooperated with the police to initiate investigations into attacks by Nazi-skinhead on members of the alternative milieu in their town. Close contacts with the victims and their knowledge concerning the identities of the perpetrators resulted in immediate arrests and lawsuits. Marcin Kornak of Nigdy Więcej is pleased that his organization has been able to help the victims by exposing the hate crimes and informing the media, public institutions and community. Because of this, victims have overcome stereotypes that they sometimes encounter in contact with public and local government institutions and receive the help they need from the relevant parties. Kornak clarifies: »Our method is not to help directly; we rather try to promote changes in social relations.« Nevertheless, there are sometimes situations in which the need for more direct help is evident.
Marcin Kornak gives a few examples:
• In 2002 a member of the network of GAN/NW and a leader of GANZamosc (south-eastern Poland) was attacked and severely beaten by a Nazi gang in front of her house. Nigdy Więcej began a nation-wide campaign of letters of support, solidarity and help. This initiative publicized her story in the national media, which removed the danger of subsequent attacks.
• In 2001 a disabled couple in Sosnowiec in southern Poland, who had been harassed by neo-Nazi skinheads, contacted the association. These people were completely alone in their predicament. Nigdy Więcej volunteers participating in the correspondent network helped. They informed the local community and stayed in touch with the victims. They helped these people feel that they were not alone. The situation turned out well: the neo-Nazi skinheads stopped harassing them.
• Another case took place in Warsaw in 2007. One of the patrons was beaten in a pub because he had protested against another patron’s anti-Semitic outbursts. The police first qualified the accident as an act of hooliganism, completely ignoring the perpetrator’s motivation and background. Nigdy Więcej put the victim in touch with lawyers from the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights and made the case public in the Brown Book . These actions made the police take a more serious approach to the problem and qualify the event appropriately.
• The most important example of Nigdy Więcej’s direct help is a spontaneous fundraiser for a group of Africans in Warsaw, who raised funds for a group of Africans in Warsaw, who were attacked by a neo-Nazi group in a pub owned by a Nigerian man. The pub »Home Africa Bar« was demolished in this incident as well. The fundraiser—run by volunteers from the organization—took place during an alternative music concert. (1)
Minority organizations also attempt to provide help or intervene, despite the fact that they are not usually specialized in assisting victims of hate crimes. The Russian Cultural and Educational Association has been approached by victims of discrimination many times. The organization provides assistance by collecting sufficient information to provide evidence to law enforcement agencies and supporting the victim’s claim that the perpetrator’s racist or nationalist-chauvinist beliefs are the main provocation for the attacks. Jan Gebert, a representative of the Union of Jewish Religious Communities, affirms the Magen group also supports victims when a critical situation happens, although such help is mostly directed towards the Jewish community. He provides an example of in the following account:
»[T]here was a case last year when we helped a woman who was attacked by her skinhead neighbor. [We helped her] go to the police and made sure that the police started to investigate the case. We also tried to help her financially. We also offered her legal support, and what is most important, we showed her that the community is standing behind her.«
This situation shows that despite limited institutional structures and professional training, minority communities can serve as support networks for members who experience hate crimes. This can involve help filing police reports, keeping track of what steps are being taken to push the legal process forward, arranging legal and financial assistance, and—as the interviewee stressed—showing solidarity with the victim to ensure that he or she does not feel abandoned in the predicament. Even though this last story certainly provides a good example of a community’s positive reaction, the challenge lies in establishing permanent programs and institutional infrastructures that provide help to victims of hate crime.
Some representatives from migrant/refugee groups, especially the Chechen and Ingush communities, expressed a great demand for victim assistance, because racism, xenophobia and discrimination have been an ongoing experience for them in Poland. These organizations/groups do not, however, run institutionalized victim assistance programs, and this activity largely falls on the leaders. Indeed, it is due to the personal commitment, experience and a certain charisma of leaders like Malika Abdoulvakhabova or Bogaudin Bokov that victims are provided with help and interventions succeed. The leaders serve as contact points, sources of information and advisors regarding whom to contact further. They also play the vital role of mediators and translators—not simply in the linguistic sense but as intercultural negotiators between migrants and local communities. Abdoulvakhabova has knowledge about all cases of violence against Chechens and Ingushes in recent years. If something happens, members of the Chechen or Ingush diaspora communities immediately come to talk to her. She says:
»The Chechen diaspora knows that I can help them and comes to us first. […] Usually, we try to help them to negotiate with the police, to receive necessary information. We are a bridge between the police officers and victims. If a crime has ethnic or national background, then I think our help to police will be very useful. We can better understand Chechen community, we know Chechen culture, Chechen traditions; that is very important in such situations. But our help can only be expressed in establishing dialogue between police and Chechens and preventing the escalation of hatred between Poles and Chechens. If something happens, we try to ask the Chechen community not to react violently, and we try to explain to the local Polish inhabitants the reason why Chechens come to Poland. I believe it is important to collect all information related to hate crimes, but I think it should be the responsibility of police officers, since it is acriminal case if someone is beaten or killed.«
She also gave the example of a situation at a school in Zambrow, where the Rescue Foundation intervened because three Chechen children were experiencing an increasing number of verbal assaults like »Poland for Poles,« »Go back to your Chechnya.« She said: »We visited this school, told children the history of the two wars [and] explained the reasons why Chechens come to Poland. We prevented the escalation of the conflict in this school [and] in this village.« Malika Abdoulvakhabova’s approach, perhaps best described as inter-group mediation, goes beyond actual victim assistance by focusing on activities that help deescalate local conflicts that might eventually lead to hate crime. She argues that explaining why Chechens had to flee their country as victims of war and military occupation can create, at least to certain extent, an atmosphere of sympathy and tolerance among members of the Polish majority. Leaders and active members of minority organizations play a crucial role in this because the better the local community knows and understands the Chechen’s situation, the less tense is the relationship between two groups.
Abdoulvakhabova points to the deficiency in legal knowledge among Chechen refugees: »None of the Chechens knows that they can appeal to the court if someone attacks them. The opinion that, if you are a refugee, you do not have any rights and you will not get any support is very widespread here.« She also said that Chechen refugees also frequently approach the Association for Legal Intervention (Stowarzyszenie Interwencji Prawnej, SIP), a lawyers association run by Chechens, Igushes and Russians. When the foundation can not help someone, they tell them to contact the SIP.
Bogoudin Bokov of the Ingush Unity is an authority in refugee circles. He speaks Polish and is familiar with the main provisions of Polish legislation concerning refugees and migrants. Most refugees do not speak Polish, which can be a major obstacle in the path towards integration, not to mention communication with administration offices and police officers. Bokov is willing to assist refugees from the North Caucasus in extreme situations, including hate crimes. Unfortunately, his organization lacks the infrastructure and knowledge to help victims of hate crimes. There are no organizations in Poland that can really help refugees in cases of attacks. This conclusion has been also drawn from his own experience. On 17 August 2005 refugees in the refugee camp in Lublin, even organized a hunger strike to protest the local population’s increasing attacks against them. (2) Help had also been requested from different Polish human rights organizations, such as the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights and the local administration, but they did not assist in the situation. Bogoudin Bokov presumes that not even they know how to react in such circumstances. The only successful solution has been to organize self-defense groups that physically confront the attackers. The police are useless in such situations, because the standard advice they give is »to close the windows and sit silently.« (3)
When isolated violent attacks occur against members of the organization or someone from the Chechen or Ingush diaspora community, Bokov directs victims to either the police, Malika Abdoulvakhabova or the SIP. It seems that personal contacts and relations prevail here. The SIP is not an organization involved in monitoring hate crimes or refugee issues as it focuses on children and family rights, but their help can be more effective. Bokov also pointed out the problem of refugees’ mistrust towards NGOs. People who work with refugees have very little knowledge about refugees and migrants, and they are often incompetent on those issues. That is why it is so important for refugees to do something for their own communities by themselves.
Bokov brings up the point that there has been an imminent need for psychological help for refugees, but it has never been provided. Officials have dealt with this issue so far by transferring refugees to a different camp. In cases of regular violence, camps can be liquidated. Many people working in the camp are completely unprofessional. Xenophobic and sometimes violent attitudes towards refugees have been reported among some of the staff. Specifically in Moszna, the camp near Warsaw, there have been many inter-ethnic clashes between inhabitants and the staff of the camp. The police have not been helpful in resolving these disputes.
The informal context of personal relationships also plays a vital role in the case of Muslim and Arab minorities. According to Marek Kubicki of the Arabia.pl Association, people of Arab or Muslim background have approached the association requesting help in dealing with Polish security services or violent groups of teenagers or skinheads. In such situations, Arabia.pl could only advise them to contact the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, the Polish Humanitarian Action or other organizations working with refugees. However, Kubicki argues that very little help comes from those organizations. Another way Muslims (mainly Chechen) have successfully managed to protect themselves against violent groups of teenagers is to organize self-defense groups. Kubicki comments that physical counter-confrontation is not the best solution, given the political context, but it has proven to be the »most effective« way of preventing the escalation of violence. He also stresses a number of problems that prevent efficient, long-term work on hate crime victim assistance: shortage of financial resources and limited knowledge on the subject (in specific reference to Arabia.pl and some other NGOs); the lack of NGOs specializing in psychological, legal and other forms of victim assistance, as well as a high degree of mistrust in the Arab and Muslim communities towards NGOs, including human rights organizations. As Arab/Muslim communities are very tight-knit and place value on personal relations, most Arabs and Muslims approach people involved in Arabia.pl as individuals, not as an organization. In such circumstances, Arabia.pl attempts to position itself as a group of individuals rather than as an NGO.
1. See: Życie Warszawy, 25 Mar 2008; Nigdy Więcej. Katalog Wypadków Brunatna Księga, p. 424; Nigdy Więcej, Nr. 17, zimawiosna 2009.
2. For more information about the incident, please see: Komitet Wolny Kaukaz, Zdjecia z głodówki w Lublinie, Indymedia Poland, 29 Aug 2005; Kurier Lubelski, 3 Sep 2005.
3. Interview with the Ingush Unity (Bogoudin Bokov).
(OPP)
