As of: March 25, 2024, 3:47 p.m
By: Paula Völkner
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Press
Split
Four men are in custody in Russia for the terrorist attack near Moscow.
Her presumed citizenship triggers hatred and incitement in Russia.
Moscow - While many people in Russia mourn the victims of the attack on Friday (March 22), racism is also growing in response to the attack.
According to Russian authorities, over 130 people were killed in the terrorist attack on the concert hall near Moscow.
Eleven people were arrested for the crime.
Four of them are accused of being directly involved in the attack.
According to Russian authorities and media reports, the men are citizens of Tajikistan.
Over a million people from Tajikistan live and work in Russia.
Hostility against migrants was already a problem in Russia before the terrorist attack,
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported.
Now there have been attacks.
In the city of Blagoveshchensk, a café run by a Tajik migrant was set on fire.
There were also reports of physical attacks on three men from Tajikistan in the western Russian city of Kaluga.
Attack on a concert hall in Moscow on March 22nd: The Crocus City Hall is on fire.
© Mikhail Tereshchenko/Imago
The news organization Eurasianet reported on threats, insults and harassment, including from Russian law enforcement authorities
.
Atovullo, a 35-year-old Tajik, told the news organization that he was kicked out of his Moscow apartment by his landlord shortly after the Crocus City Hall attack.
He said of the Russian police: “They treat you as if you were a criminal.” Now he was avoided by people on the street.
To keep people anonymous in the interview,
Eurasianet
did not publish their last names.
According to the report, both the Tajik embassy in Moscow and solidarity networks for migrants have urged Tajiks in Russia to only leave their homes if necessary and to avoid crowded places.
Russian authorities take tough action: men from Kyrgyzstan arrested at the airport
It's not just people from Tajikistan who are affected.
The day after the terrorist attack,
dozens of men from Kyrgyzstan were arrested at an airport in Moscow, according to reports from
RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty .
According to their own statements, they were held without water or food for almost 24 hours.
An official from the Kyrgyz Foreign Ministry announced that it was a Russian anti-terror operation.
According to the report, Russian human rights defender Valentina Chupik also confirmed the actions of the Russian authorities.
“Some of them were beaten by police, others were deported from Russia,” Chupik told
RFE/RL
.
Kyrgyzstan has now called on its citizens not to travel to Russia.
Xenophobia in Russia: Also from the state side
Even before the terrorist attack on Friday, there had been repeated anti-migrant sentiment in Russia, including from the state.
“The majority of immigrants do not integrate into Russian society.
They do not study the Russian language and culture, they try to isolate themselves and cling to their own traditions,” said Alexander Bastrykin, head of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, at a conference in May 2023.
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According to Eurasianet,
calls for the mass deportation of migrants circulated on social media platforms over the weekend.
In extreme cases there have even been calls to kill them.
Tajikistan's president questions the citizenship of the suspects
In any case, Tajikistan's President Emomalij Rahmon doubts that the perpetrators of the attack in the concert hall are actually Tajik citizens.
According to Moscow Times
reports
, Rahmon condemned the attack in a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday (March 24).
He expressed his doubts about the nationality of the perpetrators after Russian media claimed that the four alleged perpetrators were Tajik citizens.
During the phone call he told Putin: “Terrorists have no nationality, no homeland and no religion.” The Tajik Foreign Ministry had already claimed on Saturday that the reports about the involvement of Tajik citizens were “fake”.
According to reports, the Russian domestic secret service found passports of citizens of the Central Asian republic of Tajikistan in the suspects' getaway vehicle,
Tagesspiegel
reported .
(pav)