ARMENIANS DEMONSTRATE AGAINST MOSCOW KILLINGS
Agence France Presse — English
June 5, 2006 Monday 2:22 PM GMT
Around 100 people demonstrated outside the Russian embassy to Armenia
on Monday demanding an end to a string of racist killings in Moscow
of people of Armenian origin.
Activists at the demonstration led by the Armenian Helsinki Committee
waved placards marked “Stop fascism” and handed over a message for
the Russian ambassador saying that racist groups were acting “under
the protection of Russian state structures”.
Six people of Armenian origin have been killed in racially motivated
attacks in Moscow this year, the activists said.
“There is an ideological vacuum in Russia at the moment due to the
failure of democratic principles and values,” said the Helsinki
Committee’s chairman, Avetik Ishkhanian. “Several forces are trying
to fill this vacuum with nationalist ideology and they need to be
stopped”.
This Caucasus country has had close ties with Russia since the Soviet
Union’s 1991 collapse but they have been strained in recent months,
partly due to attacks on Armenians in Russia.
In the latest such attack a 19-year-old was stabbed to death on a train
on May 25 by a group of young people who shouted “Glory to Russia”,
a lawyer representing members of the Armenian community said.
Another activist, Arsen Kharatian, said it was time to re-evalute
the commonly held belief that Russians could do no wrong.
“It’s necessary to free ourselves of the stereotype of the Russian
who one can’t speak out against … Both Russia and Armenia should
fight at state level against racism,” he said.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
