This week two foreigners were attacked in St. Petersburg. On September, 24th a student from India was killed and a Sudan citizen was wounded.  Foreign students held a rally, demanding justice. In the same days strangers attacked two synagogues – in Astrakhan and Khabarovsk. (30-SEP-06) 

Text: HRH/Moscow, by Yanina Savenko. Sources: demos-center.ru, newsru.com

Four strangers attacked Singh Nitesh Kumar, sixth-year student of the Medical academy, near the hostel. They stabbed him in the back five times. The wounded student reached his room on the third floor. His neighbors immediately called an ambulance and police. According to Kumar’s classmates, the ambulance car arrived in half an hour, when it was too late. Meanwhile the doctors were rude to Kumar and had no respect for the dying student. Kumar died in a hospital, without recovering consciousness. In the same evening strangers attacked a Sudan citizen, they struck him on the head, took away his overcoat and documents. In April there was also an assault on an Indian student from the same academy around the same time and at the same place. In that case fifth-year student Adjanghi Kishori Kumara got  a severe wound, but doctors managed to save his life.

Police inactivity
After the April assault foreign students asked to provide entrances to the hostel with video cameras, they were even ready to pay for them. The administration promised to do that but did nothing. Moreover, when foreign students went to police and asked to provide their security, a policeman advised them “not to walk at night, and to return to the hostel right after classes”, – said a friend of the killed the rally student. The day after the assault under the aegis of the movement “Nashi” a rally was organized near the Office of Public Prosecutor in St. Petersburg. More than 100 foreign students from St Petersburg institutes participated in the protest action. They demanded to investigate the murder thoroughly and they were holding posters with slogans: “We want justice”, “We demand to forbid Fascist organizations”. Colonel Vyacheslav Kovalenko, representative of the State Internal Affairs Department in St. Petersburg and Leningrad region believes that foreign students and other citizens of St. Petersburg run the same risk and it is institute’s administration that should assure safety of their students in hostels.   

Attacks on synagogues in Astrakhan and Khabarovsk
On September, 21st strangers attacked the synagogue “Sfard” in the center of Astrakhan. On the 22nd of September at night there was another attack on the synagogue in Khabarovsk. Four strangers at about 3.00 a.m. were throwing stones at the synagogue building, where the Jewish Cultural Center was located. As a result glasses and doors were broken. Furthermore, one and a half months ago skinheads made an attempt upon synagogue in Khabarovsk; they threw a bottle with explosive mixture at the building.

Autumn assault of Russian Fascism 
– All events during last months and weeks – pogroms in Kondopoga and some events in other towns, incessant attacks on immigrants , statements of profascist nationalistic organizations and the situation in mass-media, which represents virtually apologetics and attempts to justify every act of violence – all these things are parts of the process which is called Russian Fascism. We are faced with a powerful social phenomenon, which we could overcome only by joined forces of emerging civil society  in the Russian Federation and by that part of power structures which strictly adhere to the Russian Constitution  and to the Law, – said Cochairman of the “Russia without Racism” organization Alexander Vinnikov.