In September 2010, one was dead and at least 14 people were injured in racist and neo-Nazi attacks (in September 2009, 9 people were dead and 36 injured). In all, from the beginning of 2010, 23 people in Russia were dead and at least 241 injured in such attacks.
In September, incidents of violence were recorded in Moscow region (1 dead, 7 injured), Rostov-on-Don (at least 5 injured), and the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic (2 injured). In all, from the beginning of the year incidents of violence have been recorded in 39 of Russian regions.
Still, Moscow and the region (11 dead, 94 injured), St. Petersburg (1 dead, 35 injured) and Leningrad region, and Nizhny Novgorod (2 dead, 14 injured) face the highest level of violence. The number of victims in other regions is no more than 10.
We would remind you that this statistics does not include victims of mass fights or incidents happened in the regions of the Northern Caucasus.
After the surge of persecution for racist violence in August 2010 when 13 guilty verdicts had been issued, only one trial ended with guilty verdict in September. This was the case of two policemen from Kaluga who had beaten two people from Central Asia on racist grounds. During the proceedings on assault and battery of a citizen of India in Arkhangelsk reconciliation of the parties was reached.
In all, from the beginning of the year, 63 guilty verdicts have been issued for racist violence. 217 people were convicted, 76 of them escaped punishment on different grounds or received suspended sentences without any supplementary sanctions.
Two guilty verdicts were issued against propagandists of racism and xenophobia; in Chelyabinsk region Alexander Lozovsky received suspended sentence for creating an extremist organization and hate propaganda (articles 282-1 and 282) and in Krasnodar Territory an activist of the Russian National Unity (RNE) was fined a large sum.
In all, from the beginning of the year 39 guilty verdicts have been issued under article 282, 5 under article 280, and 5 under both of the articles. 59 people were convicted, 27 of them received suspended sentences without any supplementary sanctions.
In September 2010, two bans on extremist organizations were issued; on September 15 an Islamist group Takfir wal-Hijra was deemed extremist by the Supreme Court of Russia and on September 22 Nizhny Novgorod regional court banned the activity of National Socialist Workers Party of Russia.
The federal lists of extremist materials and organizations were not updated in September 2010.
In the field of inappropriate enforcement of anti-extremist legislation persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses and certain Muslim groups is still the main trend.
Two court rulings of September seem to be symbolic.
On September 3, 2010 Khabarovsk regional court cancelled the scandalous decision of Komsomolsk-on-Amur court on closing access to several of most prominent Web resources not excepting the YouTube portal on the grounds that there could be found some of the materials included in the federal list as extremist ones.
On September 7, 2010 the Supreme Court of the Republic of Dagestan turned down the request of the republican department of the Federal Supervision Agency for Information Technologies and Communications (‘Roskomnadzor’) on closing the ‘Chernovik’ newspaper. The newspaper was nearly closed for publishing a series of problem essays on terrorism.
