MINELRES: Russian NGO SOVA Center for Information and Analysis

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Original sender: MINELRES moderator <minelres@mailbox.riga.lv>


SOVA Center for Information and Analysis was founded in fall 2002 by
staffers of the Panorama Center and the Moscow Helsinki Group. The
Center focuses on four analytical projects: 
(1) Radical Nationalism and Ways to Oppose it; 
(2) Hate Speech in Russian Mass Media; 
(3) Religion in Secular Society, and 
(4) Democracy under Siege.
Alexander Verkhovsky is Director of the Center.

(1) Radical Nationalism and Ways to Oppose it: 
As part of this project, the Center conducts monitoring and analysis of
current events, with a focus on instances of violence based on racial,
ethnic or religious hatred; public activities of radical nationalists;
developments within nationalist organizations; the activity of law
enforcement agencies in investigating hate crimes and other illegal
activities of radical nationalist groups; and changes in the legal
framework governing hate crimes and extremist activity. The primary
information sources used for this monitoring are national and local
media, internet, reports generated by other organizations, as well as
publications of radical groups. The center also provides references to
all major publications in this field.

(2) Hate speech in Russian Mass-Media: 
SOVA Center takes part in a collaborative project on studies of the Hate
Speech in the Russian Mass Media and on ways to counteract its
proliferation. It monitors and analyzes instances of active hate speech;
discussions of nationalism and hate speech in the mainstream mass media,
and appearances of nationalist propaganda in mainstream mass media.
Research findings from this project were published on SOVA web-site and
partly included into two books: "Hate Speech - My Speech?-- Problems of
Ethnic and Religious Intolerance in Russian Mass Media" (Moscow: 2002)
and "Hate Speech in electoral campaigns and beyond" (Moscow: 2004).

(3) Religion in Secular Society: 
The Center collects information on all aspects of religion and relations
between religious groups and associations with the state, as well as the
relations among religious groups/associations. Two books have been
published based on the research and analysis from this project:
"Political Orthodoxy: Russian Orthodox Nationalists and Fundamentalists,
1995-2001" (Moscow: 2003) and "Limits of Secularity. Public discussion
on secularity principle and on the ways to freedom of conscience"
(Moscow: 2005)

(4) Democracy Under Siege: 
This project is implemented in collaboration with Demos Center. Using
similar methodology as for above described projects: the Center monitors
and records the methods that are used to suppress the democratic
institutions in Russia. As part of this project, the Center issues the
weekly "Democracy Barometer," ("Limits of secularism: Public discussion
on the principle of secular state and on way of realization of freedom
of conscience") which evaluated the pressures on the democratic
institution in Russian society


You can see all those at: http://sova-center.ru

WWW: http://sova-center.ru
E-mail: mail@sova-center.ru
Phone/Fax: +7 (095)
928-63-46

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