Report: Ethnic Armenian stabbed to death in Moscow
AP Worldstream; Apr 22, 2006
An attacker fatally stabbed an ethnic Armenian man on a Moscow subway
platform Saturday, the Interfax news agency reported amid a wave of
racially-motivated attacks that has plagued Russia.
A man with a shaven head and black clothing stabbed the victim several
times before fleeing, Interfax reported, citing an unidentified
transit police official. The victim, an ethnic Armenian living in
Moscow, died at the scene of the early-evening attack, the report said.
Several attacks on foreigners and ethnic minorities have occurred in
Russia in the past few weeks, and the country has seen a marked rise
in xenophobia and racism in recent years, with rights groups accusing
the government of inaction.
Assailants, often young skinheads or other nationalists, have committed
hundreds of attacks on foreigners from Africa, Asia and Latin America,
dark-skinned immigrants from former Soviet Central Asia and the
Caucasus Mountains region, and Jews. Dozens have died.
Four Chinese students were beaten in what investigators said was a
racially motivated attack in the city of Kostroma, Interfax reported
earlier Saturday.
Police arrested two vocational school students and an unemployed
man on suspicion of attacking the Chinese students from Kostroma
State University, who were given medical aid but apparently were not
hospitalized, the report said, citing an unidentified law enforcement
official.
Police in the city 320 kilometers (200 miles) northeast of Moscow
declined to comment and prosecutors could not immediately be reached
for comment.
The suspects could be charged with inciting ethnic, racial or religious
hatred, the report said. It said one of the suspects has also been
charged in an attack on an ethnic Azerbaijani schoolgirl and accused
of shouting nationalist slogans near the city’s World War II memorial
on April 20, Adolf Hitler’s birthday.