ARMENIAN INTELLECTUALS CONDEMN KILLINGS OF ARMENIANS IN RUSSIA

Armenpress
Nov 15 2006

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 15, ARMENPRESS: Levon Ananian, the chairman of the
Union of Armenian Writers said today murders of Armenians in Russia
were either induced by racial hate or were a political order. He said
protests of Armenia were ignored by Russian law-enforcement agencies
and the bulk of hate crimes committed against Armenians in Russia
remained undisclosed.

"We have to register that Armenians in the modern world are being
killed only in Russia and Azerbaijan," he said. He was speaking at a
gathering that was prompted by another brutal murder of an Armenian
boy in the Moscow region on November 11. Narek Kocharian, a native
of Armenia, was stabbed to death on a railway platform.

The majority of speakers argued that murders of ethnic Armenians in
Russia were a political order.

‘The Russian government is capable of controlling its skinheads. When
such crimes are committed against Azeris or Tajiks the perpetrators
are revealed hours later," one of the speakers alleged. An art critic,
Henrik Igitian, spoke against calls urging to cut friendly relations
with Russia saying it would be followed by the pullout of Russian
military base from Armenia which many Armenians perceive as the
strongest guarantee of their national security. Igitian argued that
Armenia must press for a broad coverage of such murders by Russian
media and demand that Russian media condemn hate crimes.

Mrs. Hranush Kharatian, head of a government division in charge of
religious and national minorities issues, said Russian officials are
well aware of the hate crimes against Armenians but they are also
aware of Armenians’ impotence and dependence on Russia. She said this
question must be raised officially within the CIS agreements. At the
end of their conference intellectuals suggested writing a letter to
Russia’s president Vladimir Putin urging him to take swift action to
stop hate crimes in Russia.

In a related development Russian interior minister Rashid Nurgaliyev
was quoted by RIA news agency as saying they were seriously concerned
over the fast rise in extremism-related crime, driven by racial
intolerance. He said his ministry was currently monitoring 150
extremist groups across Russia, mainly race-hate groups, which have
a total membership of around 10,000.

Human rights groups have raised concerns over a surge in
racially-motivated violence Russia in recent months, and cite
widespread xenophobic attitudes in the country. About 80% of the
extremist groups’ members are under 30, and most are based in Moscow,
St. Petersburg, and the Samara and Voronezh regions, according to
Russian ministry data. Eight of these organizations pose a real threat
to public security, Nurgaliyev said.

The minister earlier said that youth extremist groups have become
more aggressive and better organized, and that some are influenced
by criminal organizations.

Ella Pamfilova, the head of the presidential council on civil society
institutions and human rights, said laws should be toughened to
eliminate legal loopholes, through which race-hate crimes are
registered as ‘hooliganism’, or no criminal cases are opened at all.