Review of Moscow bureau for human rights 

Attacks 

During January – March 2010 45 attacks motivated by xenophobia were recorded, and 12 dead and 43 wounded were their results. 

The incidents were recorded in the following regions: Moscow and Moscow region (5 dead, 15 wounded), Altay region (1 dead, 3 wounded at least), Vladivostok, Nizhniy Novgorod region, Yaroslavl region (1 dead, 1 wounded), Kaliningrad region, Karachai-Cherkess and Daghestan (1 dead each), St. Petersburg and Leningrad region (11 wounded), Tomsk region (4 wounded), Penza (2 wounded), Ryazan (1 wounded), Irkutsk (1 wounded), Izhevsk (1 wounded), Murmansk region (1 wounded), Samara region (1 wounded), Ulyanovsk region (1 wounded). 

The objects of attacks include: the Kirghiz (2 dead, 2 wounded), Koreans (1 dead, 3 wounded), Russians (1 dead), Abkhazians (1 dead), Circassians (1 dead), Uzbeks (7 wounded), Tajiks (5 wounded), natives of Africa (2 wounded), the Vietnamese (2 wounded), the Chinese (2 wounded), Arabs (1 wounded), Azerbaijanis (1 wounded), Buryats (1 wounded), Germans (1 wounded), Tuvinians (1 wounded), Jews (1 wounded), Mexicans (1 wounded). The nationality of 21 dead and wounded is not known for sure. 

During similar period of 2009 21 dead and 65 wounded were recorded, in 2008 – 49 dead, 80 wounded. 

In March 14 attacks were recorded, and 4 dead and 12 wounded were their results: 6 attacks took place in Moscow and Moscow region, 3 – in St. Petersburg and also by one in Yaroslavl, Volgograd, Murmansk, Samara regions and Karachai-Cherkess each. 

On March 14 a native of the Caucasus was beaten in Murmansk. 

On March 16 the body of a 17-year-old citizen of Abkhazia with numerous knife wounds was found in Yaroslavl. 

On March 19 in Volgograd the skinheads armed with bats attacked a company of foreign students. By a lucky chance there were no victims and all the skinheads were detained by militia. 

On March 24 in Penza a teenager attacked two female citizens of Vietnam aged 29 and 22 having inflicted seven knife wounds at least upon both girls. At the same time the employees of the office of public prosecutor who investigate the case stated that similar attack is far from being the first one in the city during recent months. 

After the explosions in Moscow underground that took place on March 29 and were most likely committed by followers of so-called “Imarat Caucasus”, the highly-strung passengers had beaten two Moslem women in the underground and later – two natives of the Caucasus. At the same time militia preferred not responding to the facts of beatings. 

On March 29 a girl – native of the Caucasus was beaten near one of Moscow underground stations. 
 

Vandalism

In January-March 2010 33 cases of vandalism and threats were recorded including 9 – in March. 

On March 17 in the streets of Tver anti-Semitic posters appeared: “Remember that the main enemy is JEW! When you see him – BEAT at once!”. 

On the night of March 20, 2010 in Budyonnovsk city (Stavropol region) the fire blazed up in the Kingdom Hall of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. 

On March 21 in Nizhnedonskoy settlement (Rostov region) unknown persons spilled paint on the monument to Lenin and drew a swastika on it. 

On March 29 a fake bomb with swastika was found in St. Petersburg underground. 

In the morning of March 30 leaflets were found in the coaches of circular line of Moscow underground with the crying girl drawn against a background of a dancing man (native of the Caucasus) with the text: “Father, I don’t want to die, save me”. 
 

Migrants and migrant-phobia 

Speaking on March 22 at the international forum devoted to the migration problems, the president of FMR Muhammad Amin Madjumder suggested not punishing those migrants who committed no other crimes for lack of registration or job permit providing once-only amnesty for them. According to him, most illegal migrants residing in Russia can’t register officially due to corruption of officials. The FMR president also suggested creating a united centralized electronic database of foreign citizens coming onto the territory of RF. He noted that this database would be accessible for frontier services, employment services, FMS and FSB. The proposals of the Federation also include improvement of assignment of quotas for job permits for no-visa migrants. FMR suggests expanding the authorities of local and regional government bodies so that they could determine the quotas for attraction of foreign employees independently. 

Member of the Public chamber Alexander Brod stated at the forum that in Russia the state federal program for training of tolerance should be developed. According to him, such a program is necessary due to growth of number of crimes motivated by xenophobia. Speaking at the forum, Alexander Brod noted that xenophobia and ethnic discrimination flourish in Russia, and anti-immigrant moods also became a norm for public politicians. 

According to him, the public chamber “permanently gets the complaints from foreign citizens who complain of extortion and racket on the part of law-enforcement bodies”. “According to sociological interrogations data, just 15% of population of Russia consider the migration to be a positive phenomenon. Share of Russians treating the migrants tolerantly does not exceed 25%. The young people agree with the toughest measures towards the migrants and minorities”. 

On March 24 the report of the World Bank (WB) about economy of RF was published stating that Russia would need more than 12 million immigrants during next 20 years to compensate the reduction of labor resources. “Russia should examine the issue of taking far-reaching measures with the purpose of increasing its attractiveness for migrants and resuming the inflow of both highly skilled and common labor”, the WB materials noted. WB recommends Russia to develop three sets of migratory policy that would promote increase of efficiency of economic and labor space of CIS as well as improvement of life of migrants. In particular, the bank suggests creating the “united space for migration and labor market among the CIS countries”. The second set of actions should be aimed at protection of rights of migrants and creation of adequate conditions for work and life in Russia, and the third set – at development of efficient system of migrants’ support in donor countries and recipient countries in CIS. 
 

Xenophobic publications and literature 

On March 16 in “Komsomolskaya Pravda” the article by N. Ostrovskaya was published suggesting the idea that militiamen “rubber-stamp” the extremist cases for being advanced. D. Steshin demagogically stated in the comment to the article that those who beat Russians in Moscow are tried just for inflicting heavy bodily harm. Steshin meant the story of so-called “black hawks” preferring to hold back that the nationalistic constituent was also available in the accusation. In his opinion, migration promotes the inflow of drugs from the Central Asia. 
 

Law-enforcement practice 

In January – March 2010 95 persons were convicted for crimes motivated by xenophobia. Eight persons were sentenced to correctional or compulsory work, 35 – got suspended sentences, 9 persons were sentenced to fines, 17 – to 1-5-year imprisonment, 17 – to 5-10-year imprisonment, 4 – to 10-15-year imprisonment, 1 – to 15-20-year imprisonment and 4 – to 20-25-year imprisonment. During similar period of 2009 40 persons were convicted for crimes motivated by xenophobia and in 2008 – 43 persons. 

Totally during March 45 persons were convicted for crimes motivated by xenophobia. Among these 5 persons were sentenced to fines, three – to compulsory work, 14 persons got suspended sentences, 17 persons were sentenced to 1-5-year imprisonment, 9 – to 5-10-year imprisonment, 1 – to 10-15-year imprisonment and 4 – to 20-25-year imprisonment. 

On March 15 the St. Petersburg city court passed a sentence on 7 young neo-Nazis: Alexander Maslennikov, Vitaly Nosko, Dmitry Nikolayev, Yuri Chernov, Anton Vostrikov, Leonid Balakin and Dmitry Silin finding them guilty of hooligan attack on African Russian Mair Alexander Muneni Mkama motivated by racial hatred. Maslennikov was sentenced to 11-year imprisonment in strict regime colony. Other of the accused got from a suspended sentence of 2,5-year imprisonment to 3-year imprisonment in general regime colony. Three of the accused who got real terms of imprisonment like Maslennikov were taken into custody in the court hall. 

On March 15 in St. Petersburg city court the jury passed a guilty verdict on a group of young people of 11 persons accused of murder, attempted murder by a group of persons in preliminary collusion motivated by hatred and hostility committed in February 2007 as well as of incitement of hatred or hostility and also humiliation of human dignity. The jurors found all of the accused guilty. 

On March 19 Leninsky district court of Stavropol passed a sentence concerning the criminal case against ten teenagers – members of criminal group who were included into informal nationalistic association “White legion” and committed one murder at least. The group leader F. Yefimenko was sentenced to 5,5-year imprisonment. Four persons got from two to five years of imprisonment. Three of the accused got suspended sentences and two else were sentenced to fines of 50 000 rubles. 

On March 24 the jury passed the second verdict on the leader of Moscow skinheads Arthur Ryno and two of his accomplices. All three of the accused were found guilty of incitement of ethnic hostility and attack on non-Slavs. 

On March 24 Amur regional court passed a guilty verdict towards five residents of Stoyba settlement of Selemdjinsky district for beating and murder of two citizens of Korean People’s-Democratic Republic in December 2008. The court sentenced four of the accused to imprisonment from 4 years to 6 years and 1 month with serving of sentence in general regime colony, and the man who committed murder was sentenced to 21-year imprisonment with serving of sentence in strict regime colony. 

On March 31 the court of Industrial district of Samara passed a sentence on three skinheads who had beaten a citizen of Kyrghyzstan in April 2009 condemning them to compulsory work. 

On March 17 it became known that the office of public prosecutor of Republic of Tatarstan issued the public warning in mid-March addressed to the pupil of one of lyceums located in Sovetsky district of Kazan who spoke more than once during 2009-2010 school year at the lessons of history in presence of the teacher and pupils about necessity of revival of fascism, agitated for watching of Nazi contents films and studying of Nazi literature. He also greeted the teachers and pupils in the building of lyceum with an action similar to the greeting of Nazis of fascist Germany as well as stated the necessity of deliverance of Republic of Tatarstan from the persons of non-Russian nationality. 

On March 18 mass media informed that the office of public prosecutor of Samara region discovered the breaches of anti-extremist legislation in the activity of Volga military Cossack society - one of its members is suspected of incitement of interethnic dissension – and made a presentation addressed to military ataman of Volga military Cossack society. 

On March 22 it became known that during an inspection the office of public prosecutor of Kostomuksha city discovered a breach of legislation on counteraction to extremist activity by editorial board of newspaper “Kostomuksha news” that published a picture in the issue dated December 17, 2009 with a drawing of two Nazi symbols – swastika and eagle. The editor-in-chief of the weekly got the warning from the city public prosecutor about inadmissibility of breaking the law on counteraction to extremist activity. 

On March 24 the information came that the office of public prosecutor of the Republic of Adygei took measures for restriction of access of pupils of 27 schools to extremist orientation websites. 

On March 26 it became known that the followers of ideology “At-takfir ua-l-hidjra” were discovered in Tatarstan, and the republican office of public prosecutor declared the warnings to them about inadmissibility of executing extremist activity. 

According to decision of Moscow city public prosecutor, on March 26 the activity of Moscow city organization of inter-regional public movement “Slavic union” was suspended as the proofs were collected during public prosecutor’s inspection that the objectives and actions of the mentioned association were directed at execution of extremist activity that caused breaches of rights and freedoms of human and citizen, causing harm to the personality, health of citizens, to the society and state. At the same time Moscow city public prosecutor sent an application to Moscow city court about acknowledgement of Moscow city organization of inter-regional public movement “Slavic union” extremist and about ban for its activity. 

On March 11 the investigatory directorate of Investigatory committee under office of public prosecutor of RF for Voronezh region completed the investigation of criminal case against Voronezh resident Alexander Mosolov who disseminated the brochures of xenophobic contents on the territory of Voronezh in May-July 2009 being a representative of organization “Military-Imperial union of Russia”. 

On March 19 the Investigatory committee under the RF office of public prosecutor completed the investigation of criminal case against seven young people who killed a citizen of China in January 2009. 

On March 22 mass media informed that in Chelyabinsk region the investigation of the criminal case was completed against Magnitogorsk resident Vyacheslav Loza accused of public appeals to execution of extremist activity using mass media. 

On March 24 it became known about completion of investigation of the case against the leaders of Kirov regional branch of DPNI. 

On March 25 the information came that in Vladimir region the investigation of criminal case was completed against 19-year-old resident of Kovrov city Alexander Kulkov accused of drawing the xenophobic graffiti. 

On March 25 Petrozavodsk office of public prosecutor sent the criminal case to court against a college student accused of dissemination of nationalistic orientation video materials via Internet with the purpose of propaganda of neo-fascist ideas. 

On March 31 it became known that Volga transport office of public prosecutor sent the criminal case for examination to Nizhniy Novgorod regional court against three residents of Balakhna city, Nizhniy Novgorod region, accused of murder of the citizen of Republic of Uzbekistan Gennady Dyu. 

On March 9 the mass media informed that a pupil of 11th form from Vyborgsky district of St. Petersburg was arrested on suspicion of participation in cruel murder of the student from Africa in recent December. 

On March 11-12 seven persons were arrested in Moscow being suspected of arrangement of explosions and of several murders. Perhaps these are the very people who belong to Autonomous militant terrorist organization (ABTO) that “became famous” in 2009. 

On March 12 in Ryazan region the criminal proceedings were instituted concerning the fact of publication of xenophobic materials in two issues of newspaper “Evening Ryazan” disseminated in the region in April and May 2009. 

On March 14 the employees of the center for counteraction to extremism of Chief directorate of home affairs for Sverdlovsk region detained a disseminator of agitation materials of association “Army of people’s will” in the center of Yekaterinburg. 

On March 15 it became known that in Chita the employees of Directorate of FSB of Russia for Transbaikalian region suppressed the activity of members of international religious extremist organization “Tabligi Djamaat” prohibited on the territory of RF. 

On March 15 criminal proceedings were instituted concerning the fact of making anti-Semitic inscriptions on the building of Jewish community center in Izhevsk. 

On March 15 in Lyubertsy near Moscow the charge was brought against two 17-year-old local residents who killed a worker-immigrant on March 4. 

On March 17 criminal proceedings were instituted on the fact of beating of a native of Caucasus in Murmansk on March 14. 

On March 17 employees of Criminal Investigation Department, together with operatives of Moscow Criminal Investigation, detained the participants of organized criminal group in Moscow; its participants were the members of youth extremist organizations “Resistance”, “Russian march”, “DPNI”, “Slavic union” and were involved into fabrication of homemade explosive devices with the purpose of committing criminal explosions on the territory of Moscow. All the detained are the residents of Moscow region and study in one of industrial schools of the city. On the same day, March 17, searches were executed in the apartments of Moscow DPNI activists Ye. Denizhkina and S. Diyev. 

On the night of March 18-19 in Tomsk the militiamen detained a group of seven persons accused of committing several crimes at once motivated by xenophobia. 

On March 19 it became known about detention of two skinheads – participants of a murder of vagabond in Bagrationovsk (Kaliningrad region) in autumn of 2009. 

On March 19 the searches were executed in Moslem religious organizations of St. Petersburg, big amount of extremist materials was confiscated and Ye. Ryabinin was arrested who disseminated extremist contents appeals in the social network “Vkontakte”. 

On March 19 it became known that investigatory bodies of Investigatory committee under the RF office of public prosecutor for Arkhangelsk region and Nenets autonomous area brought the charge of committing crime envisaged by clause 282 part 1 of CC of RF against 21-year-old resident of Severodvinsk Nikolay Kazanin. 

On March 21 investigatory bodies of Investigatory committee for Kamchatka region instituted criminal proceedings concerning the fact of placing extremist orientation video materials in the local file exchange network of cable TV provider company SC “SKTV plus” on the Internet. 

On March 23 mass media informed that the discs of Nazi subjects were deprived from the pupil of children’s home in Kamensk-Uralsky. 

On March 27 in Petrozavodsk 19-year-old nationalist was detained with an explosive device with capacity of more than 400 g of trotyl. 

On March 27-28 in Oktyabrsky city (Bashkortostan) 8 members of Islamist group were arrested who planned the terrorist acts and supplied their “colleagues” in the North Caucasus with money acquired due to plunders and kidnapping. On March 30 their leader was detained in Chelyabinsk region – native of Ingushetia Bashir Pliyev with a nickname Emir of Bashkiria. 

On March 28 in Rostov several dozens participants of “All-Slavic tournament in realistic fights” arranged by “Russian image” were detained (though the Great army of Don was said to be the formal organizer of the tournament). An empty table was placed in the center of a hall with a plate “organizing committee” and box with appeal to subscribe for maintenance of the convicts for extremism. 

On March 29 the investigatory department for Syktyvkar of investigatory directorate of Investigatory committee of RF for Komi instituted criminal proceedings on the fact of placing anti-Semitic comment on website of agency BNKomi. 

On March 30 the ministry of home affairs of Karelia announced the institution of criminal proceedings against participants of neo-Nazi group accused of attacks on representatives of “Antifa” movement. 

On March 31 investigatory bodies of Investigatory committee for Omsk region brought the charge of committing crime envisaged by clause 282 part 1 against 58-year-old local resident. 

On March 23 it was announced that the investigation did not consider the murder of South Korean student in Barnaul in February 2010 to be the crime motivated by ethnic hatred. 

In January-March 2010 Roscomnadzor issued 4 warnings to mass media for execution of extremist activity. 

Number of extremist materials in the Federal list of extremist materials reached 574 items up to late in March.