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Racist violence on the rise in Russia after Beslan
The recent terrorist attacks caused a spike in assaults on dark-skinned people from the Caucasus region and elsewhere last week, human rights activists said. Decorated former test pilot Magomed Tolboyev said Friday that he was assaulted by police officers during a document check near the Vykhino metro station. The officers said he had a Chechen-sounding last name, he said. In Yekaterinburg, gangs of young people attacked three Armenian and Azeri cafes, killing one person and injuring two, police said.Authorities have blamed the downing of two planes, the explosion near a Moscow metro station and the Beslan school siege on Chechen, Ingush and Arab fighters and suicide bombers. Dark-skinned people have in recent years increasingly been the targets of racially motivated attacks -- attacks that police usually write off as hooliganism. But the increase over the past week can only be attributed to the terror attacks, said Alexander Brod, director of the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights. "Anti-Caucasian sentiments always get stronger after terrorist acts," Brod said. "People blame everyone in the Caucasus. This is the stereotype in people's minds. Unfortunately, the authorities don't do a good job explaining that terrorism doesn't have a nationality," he said. Tolboyev, an assistant to State Duma Deputy Viktor Semyonov and a native of Dagestan, said two police sergeants stopped him to check his papers Thursday near Vykhino in Moscow's southern outskirts. He showed them his Duma ID and told them that he had been decorated with the title Hero of Russia, which he received for his participation in the Soviet space shuttle program, Interfax reported. The officers took the ID. When Tolboyev attempted to get it back, one of the officers went behind him, put his arm around his neck and began to strangle him, Tolboyev said. "My throat still aches, and I haven't been able to swallow for two days," he said, Interfax reported. Asked by telephone Friday why the officers had confronted him, Tolboyev said, "I don't know. Maybe they didn't like something about me." Posted by: Dan Darling 2004-09-13 |
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