Belgorod: 18 beaten in a month

During November - the first half of December in Belgorod, 18 foreign students studying at the Belgorod State University suffered at the hands of skinheads.

Moreover, foreign students themselves emphasize that, although there have been attacks on them before, they were not of such a systematic and pronounced racist nature.

The first case occurred in the first half of November. Three shaven-headed young men armed with a knife attacked a student from Palestine, who was returning home, shouting "Russia for the Russians". By the time his fellow students came running to the aid of the victim, they managed to inflict two more wounds on him.

The brawl stopped only after one of the Russian students passing by shouted that he would call the police. Hearing this, the attackers fled. The victim was hospitalized. The case of the attack is being investigated by the regional prosecutor's office, but as of December 2006, a racist motive does not appear in the case.

All other attacks, which took place between university dormitories and a hypermarket where foreigners buy food, were organized according to the same scheme: several people shouting "Russia for Russians!" they run up to foreigners and begin to beat them severely, after which they hide. True, there were no more armed attacks.

At the same time, only 4 attacks are officially confirmed by the police. In addition to the Arab youth, two Latin Americans and a Chinese were recognized as victims.

After the foreign students applied to the university administration with a demand to ensure their safety, police officers began to patrol the street in the dormitory area, but this did not stop the attack, since the police do not control the entire route from the hypermarket to the dormitory.

Moreover, on December 1, several suspects in the beatings were detained. They turned out to be underage teenagers who were witnesses in the case of an extremist group that organized an attack on a gypsy family in 2005. Moreover, the prosecutor's office of the region states that they were witnesses only because their involvement in the attack on the Roma was not proven. They were also released this time, because they did not reach the age of criminal responsibility for the crimes that they wanted to incriminate now.

Sources

• Sergeeva Anna. Students learn... to survive // Meridian (Belgorod). 2006. December 19.