Posted on 03/26/2006 7:07:13 PM PST by M. Espinola
Two men attacked and stabbed a nine-year-old girl of mixed Russian and African heritage in St. Petersburg, seriously injuring her in an apparent xenophobic attack, officials said Sunday.
The Saturday evening attack took place in an apartment building hallway and was the latest incident targeting foreigners or minorities in Russia's second-largest city.
Aliu Tunkara, who heads a civic group for Africans in St. Petersburg, said the girl was returning home after a walk and had just entered the building when two men stabbed her.
Alexander Klaus, an investigator with the city prosecutor's office, said in televised comments that during the attack nothing was stolen from the girl, whose father is from Mali and whose mother is Russian. He said the girl had been hospitalized in satisfactory condition.
"The attack has caused a strong public reaction and is being investigated under charges of hooliganism and attempted murder," City Prosecutor Sergei Zaitsev said in televised comments. "We are considering xenophobia as a motive."
The incident came just days after a St. Petersburg jury acquitted a teenager of fatally stabbing a nine-year-old Tajik girl two years ago. That killing drew wide public attention, provoking protests from Tajikistan and underscoring an increase in hate crimes in Russia's major cities.
Tunkara said he thought Saturday's attack was connected to the jury decision.
"Since nobody was punished for the murder of the girl, people with similar nationalist attitudes could now feel that they have nothing to fear in committing such actions," he said.
Rights groups argue Russian authorities do little or nothing to combat racial crimes.
A black Russian?
My recollection from the old Soviet days was that the Russians made noises about solidarity with oppressed black folks in Africa, brought them to Moscow for training in communism -- and then treated them like dirt.
Some things don't change.
The biggest news in that article is flabbergasting - they ACQUITTED the teenager who killed that poor Tadjik girl (I guess I should say "allegedly" - not). Unbelievable.
St. Pete has some definite skinhead/rascist problems. They also have a heckuva lot more emigrants and gypsies than Moscow has. If you walk up Nevskyj Prospekt at night you're encountered by skinheads AND gypsies (not together of course). I was in St. Petersburg a few years back with a TVA scientist (he's black). We were at the train station and this drunk guy came up and yelled some epithats and kicked his suitcase. What the drunk didn't know is we had a couple of Russian navy officers with us. Boy was he sorry.... nothing like a butt kicking AND an arrest.
Actually a biracial Russian...really doesn't make sense. Was her father ever attacked or subjected to any insult? I wonder.
You're right.
Lots of skinheads in Moscow lately. When things go bad and the economy tanks, always blame it on the minorities. Many Russians epitomize intolerance.
Young boys with no money and no job AND no future are a bad mix.
"The evil that men do lives after them"
I remember that article! I actually read it years ago. You're right about the attraction/hate thing too as history bears out :(
Back in '99 or 2000 there was a popular song by Zaprehschennye Barabanshchiki called Ubili negra. No one could explain to me if it was parody or what.
I wonder what our "good friend" Putin thinks about this?
I remember when Bill Cosby's son was murdered by a Russian immigrant, Cosby was all over the news blaming "America" for it, as in "America made him racist, because there is no racism over there."
But Cosby had no idea what he was talking about.
I bet that stew bum will think twice about making rude cracks or kicking a man's suitcase in the subway or anywhere else - again :)
Correct. Add to it that those brought-in foreigners were afforded privileged treatment [vs. regular guy-on-the street] which obviously added to the resentment. "Lumumba University of Friendship Between the Peoples" [the main institution these were organized in] was popularly known as "Lumumbarium".
Friendship University (as it is known now) is a hotbed of drugs and debauchery...
It was a parody. "Zapreshchenie Barabanshchiki" aren't too popular with skins because of it (and their music is ska-influenced).
Well, in my time it was known as "Lumumbariy", also as "zoopark". Rather illustrative, and pointed to a decent level of figurative language mastery on the part of the contemporary natives.
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