The terrorist attack on Crocus City Hall, which, according to the latest data, killed more than 140 people, provoked anti-migrant and xenophobic sentiments in Russia at all levels. Deputies demand the introduction of digital control over visitors, police are organizing raids. In comments to officials’ posts on social networks, users demand that mosques in Russia be completely closed.
At the site of the spontaneous memorial near Crocus City Hall, a banner “Visa-free regime kills” appeared. In the State Duma, United Russia deputy Mikhail Sheremet proposed limiting the entry of foreigners for the period of the so-called “SVO,” as the Russian authorities call the war against Ukraine. His colleague Vladislav Davankov called for strengthening digital control over migrants and deporting them after the slightest offense. However, he called for this even before the terrorist attack at Crocus, for example, in his election videos as a presidential candidate. In comments to politicians' statements, Russian social media users write that they propose closing mosques and keeping migrants in workhouses without the right to freedom of movement.
Singer Manizha, a native of Dushanbe, published a video on Instagram. In it, the artist expressed fears that the consequences of the attack on the concert hall would be felt by all immigrants from Central Asia: “Today my grandmother has been gone for 14 years. And for the last few years I have been thinking a lot that I am glad that she does not live what is happening to us and to the world. And I’m also glad that the consequences that will fall on Tajiks and all residents of Central Asia will not affect her."
Journalists from Idel.Realii asked representatives of the peoples of the Volga region whether they had experienced an increase in intolerance. Many of them say that xenophobia was normalized even before the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall. Now the problem has worsened. “My colleagues began to joke about pork and terrorist attacks. The bottle of water that I carry with me to the toilet (sorry for the details, this is Islamic toilet etiquette), my colleagues jokingly called the first step to terrorism,” a resident of Izhevsk told reporters.
Xenophobic sentiments do not only concern migrants. Representatives of the indigenous peoples of Russia and any people of non-Slavic appearance face discrimination, aggression and physical violence in the country. On March 24, several young men approached a Yakut woman in the Moscow metro. They shouted racist and nationalist slogans and raised their arms in Nazi salutes.
At the same time, for example, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, claims that certain ill-wishers are allegedly trying to aggravate the situation in Russia: “Let no one scare us with Russian nationalism. Russian nationalism does not exist in nature, everyone knows that.”
In Moscow, since the beginning of the week, the number of cases of violation of entry rules into Russia has increased significantly. The BBC Russian Service drew attention to this. Journalists suggest that checks were tightened after the attack on Crocus. The police and the Russian National Guard raided the warehouse of the Wildberries online store in Elektrostal, Moscow Region. The men in uniform allegedly checked documents, including work permits and military identification cards. Telegram channels write that all employees, except women with Russian citizenship, were ordered to exit through the inspection buffer. According to the Mash channel, at least five thousand people were checked, about two dozen of them were detained, some were taken to the military registration and enlistment office.
Present Time talked about the wave of xenophobia in Russia with human rights activist Valentina Chupik, who specializes in migrant problems.
– I have funny stories happening right now in the Cheryomushkinsky court of Moscow. Every hour, approximately 25 people are brought there for deportation. And three of them are Russian citizens; they were brought to be deported. Ethnic Tajiks with Russian passports. People are not accused of crimes, they are accused of deporting migrants.
I haven't slept for five nights. I have about a thousand requests a day. Of these, approximately 700 are related to arrests. I now have approximately 3.5 thousand requests from detainees. About 150 are related to beatings of migrants by police. This mostly happens during arrests. Administrative offenses are falsified against the majority of migrants: disobedience to the demands of police officers in relation to those people who were beaten, in order to put them in jail for a day, or migration violations, in order to deport them through a special detention center. Protocols on petty hooliganism are falsified against the rest, attributing to them obscene language in a public place, in order to explain the reasons for the arrest.
There are quite exotic cases in the city of Michurinsk, Tambov region. There, at least four drivers of non-Slavic appearance were detained overnight. The police stopped them and demanded, in addition to their documents, to give them their wallet. After which they took all the money out of him. If people began to be indignant, they were accused of allegedly trying to give a bribe with the same money. In three cases, give a bribe in the amount of 500 rubles ($5.41), and in one case in the amount of 4,000 rubles ($43.27). The rest of the money was simply stolen.
I receive requests from different regions of Russia. About half are from Moscow. There are now a lot of cases in the Moscow region. In third place is Ekaterinburg. In fourth place is St. Petersburg. But there is Krasnodar, and Tver, and Norilsk, and Kaliningrad, and Sochi, and Volgograd, and Samara, and Ufa. I do not believe that the Russian population itself produces these sentiments.
– Who is inciting this then?
– We see many statements by Russian officials and so-called law enforcement agencies that incite migrant phobia out of nowhere. Their goal is to distract people’s attention from the real problem, to divert attention from the fact that the terrorist attack was at least ignored, and perhaps even deliberately allowed to happen. The goal is to shift aggression from the authorities to an obviously weak group that is “easy to defeat” and which is clearly alien. And the opportunity to rob with impunity.
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