St. Petersburg police: foreigners themselves provoke crimes

On February 24, 2005, an interview was published with the head of the operational-investigative unit N6 of the Main Directorate of Internal Affairs of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region (a unit dealing with offenses committed by and against foreign citizens) Andrey Stanchenko.

In his opinion, the reputation of St. Petersburg as a city where neo-Nazi groups are active is greatly exaggerated. And this happens due to the fact that "any crime committed against foreign citizens causes great damage to the image of St. Petersburg and Russia in the international arena . "

Meanwhile, crimes committed against foreigners make up only a small percentage of the total number of crimes in the city (in 2004 this proportion was 510/70,000). In the Leningrad region, this ratio is even smaller - only 0.4%. Whereas "in 2004, foreign citizens committed 1,075 crimes in St. Petersburg, 229 in the region. That is, about two times more than against them . "

According to A. Stanchenko, in 2004, 25 foreign citizens were killed in St. Petersburg and the region (21 people from the CIS and 4 from far-abroad countries - 4). Against the general criminal background of the northern capital, this figure is not so high: “It cannot be said that more crimes are committed against foreigners than against Russians. *A foreign citizen is even in a much more protected position than our compatriots, due to the fact that their compact residence, study, work, the routes of police squads are close" highlighted by us. Recall that it was in St. Petersburg, as one of the measures to counter racist violence in 2004, that a special unit was created "to identify illegal migrants and protect foreign students" ( ed. ).

At the same time, the presence of skinheads in the city is not denied. A. Stanchenko said that "about 400 people are registered with the Central Internal Affairs Directorate. In principle, these are scattered small groups, consisting, as a rule, of 10 people . " These groups are teenagers up to 18 years old, they are formed according to the territorial ("yard") principle. In most cases, there is no ideological motivation for their illegal actions, and the attacks are carried out out of mercenary motives.

"The very behavior of foreign citizens often provokes groups of young people to commit hooligan acts. Seeing the company of young people, foreigners - usually from Asian and African countries - often take to flight, thus drawing attention to themselves and becoming the object of persecution," said A. Stanchenko (cf. with the statement of the head of the city police department Mikhail Vanichkin in December 2004).

The representative of the Main Department of Internal Affairs noted that the difficulty in bringing to justice the criminals who attacked foreign citizens "often lies in the fact that foreigners refuse to identify the criminals, fearing their revenge . " For example, one of the injured students of the Pediatric Institute ultimately refused to identify the attackers precisely out of fear (possibly, we are talking about the incident of January 7, 2005. However, the interview claims that the student was robbed, and the reports about the incident itself do not mention the robbery mentioned, just as there is no mention of the arrest of the attackers).

Comm. Once again, one can observe a discrepancy, to put it mildly, in the terminology of representatives of law enforcement agencies and experts talking about the growth of racist violence. At the same time, one can argue about various criteria for statistical accounting (indeed, an analysis of crime statistics shows that representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (unlike representatives of the prosecutor's office ) can hardly operate with figures of "nationalist" crimes). However, this is not what causes bewilderment, but the position of the actual self-elimination of the police from such a problem ( “the very behavior of foreigners provokes such crimes” ).

Andrey Stanchenko, head of the Department of Internal Affairs of St. Petersburg and the region for offenses committed by foreigners and against them, "Crimes against foreigners worsen the image of St. Petersburg" // Interfax - North-West. 2005. February 24.