Tag Archives: #Stabbing

AFS (American Field Service), Media, USA

2008 Dec 17: African American Student in Russia Stabbed by Neo-Nazis

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By Maria Rozalskaya

On December 5th in Volgograd (Southern Russia), an 18 year-old African American was stabbed. Stanley Robinson came to Russia to participate in a student exchange program. On a Volgograd street he ran into a group of local teenagers who picked a quarrel with him, as a result he was hospitalized with two knife wounds. His mother who spoke with him by phone said they are sure it was racially motivated.

This case is one of hundreds occurring every year in Russia. According to the statistics gathered by a Moscow based NGO “SOVA Center for Information and Analysis”, by December 1st there were 83 people murdered and 365 injured. These figures are far from being correct; the real number of violent hate crimes is much higher. The majority of crimes go unreported both by police and mass media.

However, the statistics mentioned above do help to monitor hate crimes to a degree. Although the incidence of racist violence is not increasing dramatically every year, they are becoming more and more cruel, making such cases as Robinson’s appear quite lucky.

One of the last high profile cases is the one of a 20 year-old guest worker from Tadjikistan who was murdered and beheaded by neo-nazis in Moscow. His head was found in another district, placed stealthily next to one of the Moscow municipality offices. The case stands out not only because of the gruesome particulars, but also because it was a clear terrorist act: before the head was discovered, neo-nazis sent e-mails to several NGOs and media outlets taking responsibility for the action, and announcing that the head was placed in the same district where a few months before a Russian girl had been raped and murdered, allegedly by an Uzbek man.

Anti-fascists and human rights defenders often become victims of hate motivated violence or death threats themselves.

On June 19, 2004 in St. Petersburg, Nikolai Girenko, an expert on right-wing extremism, was gunned down in his apartment. On November 13, 2005, 20-year-old human rights activist and musician, Timur Kacharava, was murdered and his friend Maxim Zgibai stabbed in St. Petersburg. On April 16, 2006, in Moscow, Alexander Ryukhin, a human rights activist, was stabbed to death on his way to a concert. On December 22, 2006 in Moscow, Tigran, also an activist, found a bomb on his staircase and on March 27, 2007, in Izhevsk, Stanislav Korepanov, a supporter of human rights, was beaten by nazis and died from his injuries a few days later. On July 21, 2007, 21-year-old Ilya Borodaenko was stabbed to death during the attack of a group of neo-nazis at an ecological camp in Siberia. On March 16, 2008, in the center of Moscow, 20 year old Alexey Krylov was stabbed to death on his way to a human rights concert. On October 10, 2008, in Moscow, 27-year-old Fyodor Filatov, one of the leaders of the human rights movement, was stabbed to death as he was leaving his home.

Photos, home addresses and telephone numbers of human rights defenders repeatedly appear on hate websites with calls for violence against them.

The response of the law enforcement is not satisfactory, though it is slowly improving, with more and more neo-nazis convicted for committing crimes with a hate motive. Law enforcement tends to prosecute singular and low profile individual nationalistic statements rather than to fight with popular and influential hate websites and to detect and put on trial perpetrators of violent crimes. Moreover, in a number of cities, there is a strong suspicion that many police officers sympathize with neo-nazis and not only avoid investigating hate crimes, but also help neo-nazis by criminalizing human rights activists and leaking their personal data to the right wing websites.

As for Stanley Robinson’s case, two 17 year-old neo-nazi skinheads have been detained and confessed to the attack. Stanly was moved from Volgorgad to a hospital in Helsinki for recovery. He is in grave, but stable condition.

Maria is a researcher at the SOVA Center for Information and Analysis (Moscow, Russia), and a volunteer with several antifascist and refugee aid projects.

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Color and blocked text added by me to make access to SR’s case easier.

2008 Dec 12: Russia: Stabbing of African-American Exchange Student May Be Hate Crime

2008 Dec 15: Hurt R.I. Student moved to Finland

AFS (American Field Service), Media, USA

2008 Dec 15: Hurt R.I. Student moved to Finland

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Monday, December 15, 2008

By: Herald Wire Services

MOSCOW – The mother of an American exchange student who was stabbed in Russia says her son has been transferred to a hospital in Finland.

Stanley Robinson, 18, of Providence was stabbed by unknown assailants in the southern Russian city of Volgograd Dec. 5.

Robinson was studying Russian on a program arranged by the American Field Service, or AFS.

The organization said Saturday it had arranged his transfer to Finland, and his mother, Tina Robinson, confirmed by phone yesterday that he was hospitalized in Helsinki.

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2008 Dec 12: Russia: Stabbing of African-American Exchange Student May Be Hate Crime

AFS (American Field Service), Media, USA

2008 Dec 12: Russia: Stabbing of African-American Exchange Student May Be Hate Crime

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An African-American exchange student has been stabbed by unknown assailants in a southern Russian city in an attack officials say may have been racially motivated.

Stanley Robinson, 18, of Providence, Rhode Island, was in grave but stable condition Friday at Hospital No. 12 in the southern city of Volgograd, the hospital’s head doctor said.

Investigators were trying to determine if the Dec. 5 assault on Robinson was a hate crime, said city police spokeswoman Svetlana Smolyaninova. No suspects have been detained, and she said authorities have not ruled out robbery or random violence.

But Robinson’s mother, who has spoken twice with her son by telephone since the attack, has no doubts about what motivated the attack.

“I believe it happened because he is a person of color,” Tina Robinson said in a telephone interview Friday from her home in Providence. “It was completely unprovoked.”

The stabbing took place in Volgograd, an industrial city of 1 million people 550 miles southeast of Moscow.

Tina Robinson said her son had developed pneumonia, and said she was trying to arrange his transfer to a Western-style medical facility. “I’m very concerned about the care he’s getting there,” she said.

The U.S. Embassy declined comment, citing privacy concerns.

In recent years Russia has seen a rising number of attacks against members of non-Slavic ethnic groups, particularly darker-skinned migrants from the Caucasus region and Central Asia. African students and immigrants are also frequent targets of attacks, but attacks on Westerners are rare.

Two Tajik men were attacked in a town north of Moscow last week. One was beheaded and Russian media reported his head was found 12 miles away. On obscure nationalist group claimed responsibility in an e-mail to the Sova hate-crime monitoring group.

Tina Robinson said she was unaware of Russia’s troubles with racism when her son left for a year abroad. “If I had any inkling that there was any possibility of this happening, I would have tried to dissuade him,” she said.

The victim’s mother and police gave slightly differing accounts.

Smolyaninova said three men approached Robinson at about 6 p.m. in a dark street far from his host family’s home. The assailants stabbed Robinson twice in the chest, she said.

Tina Robinson said her son had just finished working out at a gym and was headed for a bus stop when a single stranger approached and punched him. Robinson punched back, his mother said. The attacker then pulled a knife and stabbed Robinson in the chest and side, she said.

Relatives said Robinson, a graduate of East Providence High School in Rhode Island, was three months into his stay. He was studying Russian on a program arranged by the American Field Service, or AFS.

A woman who answered the phone at AFS’s Moscow offices said no one could comment. She declined to give her name.

Tina Robinson said she did not blame the host family. The host family could not be reached for comment Friday.

Galina Kozhevnikova, the deputy head of Sova, said at least 385 people have been hurt in racially motivated attacks this year. According to Sova, at least 85 people have been killed in such incidents.