Racism and Xenophobia in October 2012

In October 2012, seven people in Moscow and the Kostroma region were injured as a result of racist and neo-Nazi attacks. This puts the total numbers related to such attacks since the beginning of this year at 11 people have been killed and 149 people injured. One person was the target of a serious death threat. So far this year, racist events have been recorded in 26 of the country’s regions. Public activity by ultra-rightists was not high in October. The all-Russian action in support of Colonel Vladimir Kvachkov held on October 7 in several cities is the only one to be mentioned. However, the number of participants was not significant.

Russian nationalists continued with their so-called "Kondopoga technology" conflict-promotion tactic. The phenomenon, which has become national, essentially consists of stoking widespread aggression against non-Slavic minorities in response to or retaliation for an isolated incident. In October, such attempts were made in the village of Verkhny Ufaley in the Chelyabinsk region.

October saw no fewer than 15 acts of neo-Nazi vandalism. So far in 2012, we have recorded 86 acts of racist and other ideological vandalism in 36 regions of the country.

This month, at least four convictions were carried out in cases of racist violence motivated by hatred in Moscow, and in the Bryansk, Kirov and Nizhny Novgorod regions; 10 people were convicted in these trials. Noteworthy is the verdict issued on October 30 by the Moscow City Court convicting the gang of Yemilian Nikolaev (Ian Lutik). In total since the beginning of this year at least 29 verdicts have been issued against 83 people in 20 Russian regions.

In October, at least 12 verdicts were issued for xenophobic propaganda against 14 people in 11 regions of the country. So far in 2012, 75 verdicts were issued against 97 people in 42 Russian regions.

During the past month the Federal List of Extremist Materials, compiled by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation, was updated 5 times, on October 8, 10, 19, 23 and 30. The list was extended to include paragraphs 1461-1474. These include an ultraconservative Islamist group's website; a variety of xenophobic materials from the social network "Vkontakte"; several books by Russian nationalist ideologists including those by the famous Nazi terrorist Nikolai Korolev; a number of materials by Bashkir nationalists; the "Resistance" website owned by Boris Stomakhin; and a Nazi brochure on racial hygiene that had previously been included into the list following another court’s decision.