March 2009. Results of the month

In March 2009, at least 16 people were injured in racist and neo-Nazi attacks, 4 of whom died. During the same period in 2008, at least 58 people were injured, 13 of whom died.

Since the beginning of the year, 21 people have been killed and another 70 injured.

As before, the Moscow region remains the main center of violence. Since the beginning of the year, 11 people have died and 35 people have been injured here. It is followed by St. Petersburg (with the Leningrad region) - 3 killed and 12 wounded.

In addition to the cities mentioned, in March 2009 racist incidents were recorded in Chelyabinsk and Yaroslavl, and since the beginning of the year such attacks have been recorded in 13 regions.

The dominant group of victims are natives of Central Asia - 12 killed and 6 wounded (we note that the two-fold predominance of deaths illustrates the thesis that we have repeatedly voiced that less serious attacks simply fall out of public attention). In second place are natives of the Caucasus (5 dead and 12 wounded), in third place are blacks (1 dead and 14 wounded).

In March 2009, at least 4 sentences against 16 people were handed down for racist violence - in Moscow, Kirov, Cheboksary and the Kaluga region. Since the beginning of the year, there have been at least 8 convictions for violent hate crimes against 24 people.

The Samara neo-Nazis who attacked anti-fascists in September 2008 were sentenced conditionally and without taking into account the motive of hatred. And the teenagers who attacked a Jewish musician in November 2008 remained practically unpunished: the criminal case against them was dropped, and the punishment for them was the ban on appearing in public places after 22:00 on weekdays and after 23:00 on weekends for 2 years .

In March 2009, there was one guilty verdict related to public xenophobic statements (Article 282): in Moscow, two people were sentenced to a large fine for a racist brawl in a cafe. In addition, in March 2009, in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, a vandal was sentenced for painting the Alley of Glory in the city of Achinsk with anti-Russian inscriptions. He was sentenced to a year in prison.

Six times (5 and 11, 18, 20, 25 and 27 March) the Federal List of Extremist Materials was updated. As of April 1, 361 items were included in it.

In March 2009, lists of "anti-extremist" warnings issued to the media by the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications and Mass Communications (Rossvyazkomnadzor) were published. In January-March 2009, at least 4 warnings were issued, and we consider at least one of them illegal: the Rosbalt agency received a warning for incorrect reader comments posted on the forum.

The practice of unlawful application of anti-extremist legislation ("anti-extremist" pressure on representatives of religious minorities, persecution of activists of the political opposition, etc.), as well as the practice of imitation of anti-extremist activities (for example, anti-extremist persecution of libraries in a situation of unresolved legislative contradictions) continues.

However, in March, a fundamentally important event took place in St. Petersburg. The Research Center "Memorial" nevertheless managed to achieve recognition of the illegal search conducted in the organization under the pretext of investigating an "extremist case."