2007

On June 19, 2007, in Moscow and St. Petersburg, several verdicts were announced in criminal cases against rightwing extremists. In St. Petersburg the jury found a group of young men guilty in the murder of Roland Epassak, a citizen of Congo, who was stabbed to death in September, 2005. In Moscow, three skinheads, affiliated with the neo-nazi Slavic Union, were convicted of premeditated act of hooliganism, infliction of light bodily harm and assault. On the same day the Supreme Court of Russia upheld the conviction of rightwing activists Mikhail Klevachov and Vladimir Vlasov in the case of the Grozny-Moscow train detonation of June 12, 2005.

Valentina Uzunova, an ethnologist and expert on extremism and racist incitement in Russia, was attacked and beaten by an unknown person in St. Petersburg on June 19, 2007. 59-year-old Uzunova was hospitalized with a concussion.

On June 20, 2007, in Moscow, the SOVA Center presented a new report, Sowing On The Meadow Of Russian Nationalism. The report describes radical nationalism and resistance against it in the spring of 2007. The report will be available in English in a few weeks.

In June, 2007, Human Rights Watch and the European Region of the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA- Europe) released their report "We Have the Upper Hand". Freedom of assembly in Russia and the human rights of lesbian, gay,
bisexual, and transgender people. PDF version of the report is available here.

The trial of a high profile case started in St.Petersburg on 23 May with seven young men, three of them minors, accused of attacking 20-year-old anti-fascist musician Timur Kacharava, and his friend Maxim Zgibai on 13 November 2005.

Anti-Estonian rhetoric and activities; attacks on minorities; subcultural and left-wing youth and nazi groups taking part in May Day and Victory Day - these events form the dark political tapestry woven by the extreme right-wing in the first ten days of May.

This year, Hitler's birthday - 20 April - was marked by the intimidation of minorities, neo-nazi demonstrations and a heightened police presence in the main cities. Foreign students were asked not to leave their hostels for several days lest they should be attacked, a fact which casts doubt on the ability of the police to afford them adequate protection.

On March 27, a nazi gang attacked a group of skaters in Izhevsk (Udmurtia). Stanislav Korepanov, 17, was severely beaten and hospitalised in the attack and, though operated on, died four days later. As many as 400 young people attended a memorial meeting, on 3 April, at the location of the attack on him which had taken place late in the evening in the city centre, only a hundred meters from the palace of the President of Udmurtia.

On March 9, 2007 in Krasnoarmejsk, Saratov Region, disturbances caused by a local businessman's death took place. A citizen of Azerbaijan stabbed him in a fight.

On March 6, 2007 the U.S. Department of State (the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor) released its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices in 2006. The report on Russia covers different aspects of this problem, including the situation of national, racial and ethnic minorities (see Section 5), and the freedom of speech in connection with the new version of the law "On Countering Extremism" (see Section 2.a).