Racism and Xenophobia Update for May 2011

May 2011 saw at least 9 people wounded in neo-Nazi attacks across Russia, with one Armenian national in Moscow killed. Incidents were recorded in Moscow (3) and the Moscow region (1 killed, 2 wounded), St. Petersburg (1 wounded) and the Saratov region (1 wounded). This brings the year-to-date total for 2011 to 11 killed and at least 55 wounded in racist attacks in 14 regions across Russia; 5 people have received death threats.

We draw special attention to an incident in Chelyabinsk involving a group of Nazi skinheads who yelled pro-Hitler slogans, then stabbed a passer-by who reproached them.

Right-wing radicals organized and took part in prominent public events in May 2011 – as in the past, nationalist and radical Christian groups co-opted the May 1 holiday for their own celebrations in the capital and other cities, with roughly 600 attending a Moscow parade. Additionally, right-wing activists participated in the violent dispersal of an unauthorized Gay Pride parade in Moscow.

We recorded no fewer than 5 acts of hate-motivated or neo-Nazi vandalism in May. Three of these were the desecration of Muslim graves in various cemeteries in the Nizhny Novgorod region. As such, year-to-date we have recorded no fewer than 29 of such cases. The primary targets of vandalism in 2011 seem to be Muslim objects and, to a lesser extent, ideological monuments.

Russian courts considered the hate motive in at least 6 convictions in racist violence cases in May 2011, in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and the Karelia, Voronezh and Samara regions. These rulings resulted in sentences for a total of 28 people: 1 to life imprisonment, 13 to various prison terms, 10 receiving suspended sentences, and 1 released from criminal responsibility after the expiration of a statute of limitations.

The most significant ruling was the life sentence handed to neo-Nazi Nikita Tikhonov for the January 2009 murders of lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova in Moscow; Tikhonov’s common-law wife Evgenia Khasis will serve 18 years in prison for her role as a lookout. Also notable was the St. Petersburg City Court’s ruling against the neo-Nazi group “Lincoln 88,” which stood accused of 12 separate racist attacks including two murders. Eighteen people were convicted and 10 face imprisonment.

A St. Petersburg jury ruled on one of the longest cases SOVA has followed – that of the Borovikov-Voevodin gang, who were accused of various racist attacks over the course of several years. Nearly every defendant in the case was found guilty.

Overall, Russian courts made at least 23 convictions considering the hate motive in racist violence cases since the beginning of the year. 91 individuals received sentences, with 36 of those being suspended sentences.

Five sentences were delivered against 5 individuals in cases dealing with xenophobic propaganda in May. The trials took place in the Khabarovsk, Kurgan, Kursk, Moscow and Tver regions. Thus, 24 sentences (10 of them suspended sentences with no additional sanctions) against 28 people in 19 regions of Russia have been delivered for xenophobic propaganda so far in 2011.

A ruling in the Moscow Region city of Taldom found a 19-year old student guilty of writing racist slogans and swastikas on buildings in the city, for which he will serve a year in prison. Since the beginning of 2011, 8 people have been convicted in 4 rulings on xenophobic vandalism.

In the beginning of May 2011, a number of items were withdrawn from the Federal List of Extremist Materials due to cases of duplicate entries, for example paragraphs 667, 677-679, and 682. Unfortunately, this process did not come close to removing all such entries. Additionally, 29 texts by L. Ron Hubbard (items 632-660) were excluded from the List. Regardless, the List continued to grow in May 2011, with entries 852-870 added.

The Federal List of Extremist Organizations was also supplemented in May 2011 by the addition of the interregional “Army of the Will of the People” movement; the Moscow City Court found this group to be extremist in November 2010, with the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation ratifying the decision the following month. Thus, according to the official Ministry of Justice website, 22 organizations in Russia – not including groups deemed terrorist – are now considered extremist.

On May 16, a Vologda court deemed the National Socialist Initiative, of Cherepovets, to be extremist and banned its activities. The group appeared in Cherepovets in early 2010 as a regional chapter of the St. Petersburg movement of the same name. The leader of that group had been sentenced to five years in prison in 2005 for heading another neo-Nazi group, the Schultz-88.