Kursk region: is there a problem of xenophobia or not?

On November 16, 2004, a round table "Problems of Interethnic Relations and Tolerance in the Kursk Region" was held in Kursk. Representatives of public organizations, state structures, law enforcement agencies took part in its work.

Participants in the discussion with considerations about the danger of the development of inter-ethnic and inter-confessional conflicts in the region. The pogrom at the Jewish cemetery, the conflict between the communities of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Old Believers, the beatings of foreign students - these are just some of the facts that were mentioned during the conversation. However, the participants of the round table believe that much more evidence indicates that the problem of xenophobia in the Kursk region is not as urgent as in a number of other regions of Russia.

At the same time, the organizer of the round table, the Information and Expert Agency "Kursk XXI Century", published interviews with representatives of law enforcement agencies, in which they outlined their vision of the problem of xenophobia.

In particular, representatives of the prosecutor's office reported on their experience of interaction with public national organizations, in particular the "Azerbaijani community", "Jewish national-cultural autonomy of the Kursk region" and the "Armenian community", including for solving problems of countering extremism, on the release of a practical manual "Counteracting extremist activity", which was sent to the heads of district administrations of the region, on the investigation of a number of cases in which incitement to ethnic hatred is seen.

Meanwhile, a representative of the FSB of the region, Sergey Chernyshev, believes that in the region " ... "there are no facts of aggressive extremism ... individual clashes on interethnic grounds are explained by hooliganism, which is in no way connected with the facts of interethnic hatred and extremism ."

The same point of view is supported by the Dean of the Faculty of Education of Foreign Students of KSMU Lyudmila Severyanova, who, speaking about attacks on foreigners, emphasized that most of them were committed for the purpose of robbery.

Recall that the leadership of the city police department also denies them. In March of this year, its head, Nikolai Minenkov, issued a statement that "at present there are no organized groups of skinheads in Kursk . " A few days later, two African students were beaten.

The regional court is probably of the same opinion, which in 2003 reclassified the case of beating foreign students from Article 282 (which the prosecutor's office insisted on) to "hooliganism." Despite the fact that Nazi symbols and literature were confiscated from the accused, according to the judge, the actions of the accused "did not have a pronounced public character and were not addressed to a wide range of citizens, aimed at inciting national, racial and religious hatred" .

COMM. This publication allows us to see that representatives of the state do not have a unanimous opinion about the situation in the region: the prosecutor's office is concerned about manifestations of ethnic intolerance and is trying to organize work to counter them, while the FSB, the Central Internal Affairs Directorate and the representative of the university responsible for the safety of students deny these manifestations.

Sources

• Istomin V. Extremism in Kursk has a hooligan character // Kursk XXI. 2004. November 16.
• There are no problems of interethnic hatred in the Kursk region // There.
• Pokrovskaya A. Kursk region. Teenagers rampage in the Jewish part of the Kherson cemetery // Russia. Regions. 2004. November 19.