ATTACKS ON MINORITIES IN MOSCOW – HATE CRIME, PROSECUTORS SAY
Pravda, Russia
July 3 2006
Four Armenians and one Azerbaijani were attacked by about 15 assailants
at a subway station on Saturday, said Sergei Marchenko, a spokesman
for the Moscow prosecutor’s office. The Moscow prosecutor’s office
initially said only two people were hurt in the attack, and that it
was being investigated as "hooliganism," not a hate crime.
Russia has seen a wave of xenophobia and hate crimes in recent years,
with hundreds of attacks reported, including many on dark-skinned
immigrants from former Soviet Central Asia and the Caucasus Mountains
region.
Rights activists say hate groups are emboldened by authorities’
mild approach to prosecuting hate crimes, and say that neo-Nazi and
extremist literature is sold freely.
In Yerevan, Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan on Monday
condemned the attack, and called on Russia to do more to head off a
rising tide of violent xenophobia in the country.
Meanwhile, three suspects in the Saturday stabbing of a Kazakh
citizen were arrested for a racially motivated crime, the Interfax
news agency reported.
Also Saturday, two Uzbek citizens were hospitalized with multiple
stab wounds after being attacked in southwest Moscow, Interfax said.