Racism and Xenophobia in March 2012

In March 2012, members of the ultra-right assaulted at least seven people, in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Karelia.

Overall this year, at least 32 people have fallen victim to racist attack, two of them being killed, in nine regions (Moscow and the Moscow region, St. Petersburg, the Kaliningrad, Rostov, Samara, Vladimir, Volgograd and Voronezh regions, and the Republic of Karelia) of Russia. We remind readers that these statistics do not include victims of mass brawls or of violence in the republics in Russia’s North Caucasus.

This month, we recorded at least three acts of vandalism that can be classified as motivated by hatred or neo-Nazi ideology. Since the beginning of the year, there have been 11 such incidents.

In the beginning of the month the ultra-right still participated in the rallies For Fair Elections. The March 5 demonstration drew members of the Russian Civil Union (RGS), National-Democratic Alliance (NDA) and the coalition organization Russians. Sergey Baburin, head of the Russian People’s Union (ROS), spoke from the stage at that rally along with Vladimir Tor and Konstantin Krylov, who head the Russian Public Movement (ROD). Blogger and opposition leader Alexey Navalny, who is known to hold nationalist sympathies, also addressed the crowd. Separate groups of far-right activists ran small, separate processions during one of which a journalist from Ekho Moskvy was assaulted.

However, on March 10, a far-right column led by Dmitry Demushkin walked out from the opposition rally in the New Arbat street in central Moscow. They ran separate processions in the nearby Old Arbat street and the Kievskaya Metro station, featuring the usual racist slogans.

The new trend of creating and registering new ultra-right parties, which had begun in winter, continued through March. As such, on March 19 Alexander Belov and Dmitry Demushkin (of the Russians movement) and Konstantin Krylov and Vladimir Tor (of the Russian National-Democratic Party) announced the initiation of party projects.

We are aware of only one sentence this month delivered in connection with a racist violence case. In Chita, a case was dropped “in connection with the reconciliation of the parties” after a resident attacked a man of “non-Slavic appearance” with an axe in August 2011. We also note a decision by the Omsk Regional Court, which sentenced neo-Nazi skinheads to considerable prison terms after they were convicted of murdering a 24-year-old associate for “treason,” i.e. cooperating with law enforcement, on Hitler’s birthday (April 20, 2011). The case did not establish the hate motive.

The year so far has seen three sentences (in St. Petersburg and the Irkutsk and Transbaikal regions) for violent crimes motivated by hatred. These trials convicted four people: three received suspended sentences, while the other was sentenced to thirteen years in a penal colony. Additionally, one person was sent for compulsory treatment.