SKINHEADS CHARGED WITH ATTACKING FOREIGNERS IN URALS CITY

RIA Novosti, Russia
March 28 2006

UFA, March 28 (RIA Novosti) – Prosecutors in a southern Urals region
have pressed charges against members of a group of skinheads suspected
of attacking foreign students, a spokesman said Tuesday.

Prosecutors in Bashkortostan, a republic on the Volga, said the case
had been sent to a court in Ufa, the regional capital, and qualified
the attacks on the students from a local oil university as race-hate
crimes.

According to the prosecutors, the group was led by a 24-year-old
young man, who had increased the numbers of the gang to more than 30
people, mostly minors at the time of the alleged assaults dating back
to last year.

According to investigators, three members of the gang publicly
assaulted the foreign students on the instructions of the gang
leader in February 2005. The skinheads are alleged to have beaten up
students from Vietnam, China and Angola, with one of the attackers
purportedly hitting the Chinese student with a wooden bat in “an
admission ceremony.”

Two other members of the group are not facing any charges as they
were 13 when the attacks are said to have taken place.

A wave of racially motivated crimes has recently swept Russia.

Reports of attacks on foreigners with non-Slavic features have prompted
Russian and foreign human rights groups to raise concerns over the
alarming spread of racist and xenophobic sentiments in the country.

In one of the latest incidents, four teenagers suspected of the murder
of an Armenian man on a commuter train two weeks ago were arrested
in the Moscow Region Monday.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress