As of: March 27, 2024, 7:08 p.m
By: Fabian Hartmann
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Press
Split
After the Moscow attack, Russia is interrogating four main suspects.
They are said to come from Tajikistan - pressure on Central Asian people is growing in Russia.
Bishkek - After the fatal attack on a concert hall near Moscow on March 22nd, people from Central Asia in Russia are under great pressure.
They include not only visitors, but also migrant workers.
Now the Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan has also called on its citizens not to travel to Russia.
As a result of the attack on the Crocus City Hall in Krasnogorsk, an affiliate of the Islamic State from Khorasan Province (ISPK) had already claimed responsibility for the attack.
Russian officials said earlier that 11 suspects had been arrested.
These include four men from Tajikistan who are said to be the main suspects in attacking the Crocus City Hall entertainment center.
They were taken into custody on Sunday evening, where they will initially be questioned until May 22nd.
On March 25, three more Tajik men living in Russia were remanded in custody for at least two months, broadcasters
Radio Free Europe
(RFE) and
Radio Liberty
(RL) report.
Sooronbai Jeenbekov (lr), President of the Kyrgyz Republic, and Vladimir Putin at a military exercise in 2019. © Alexei Nikolsky/dpa
After the attack in Moscow – attacks against Central Asian migrants
Over a million people from Tajikistan live and work in Russia.
According to
RFE and RL,
there had been repeated hostility towards Tajik migrants in Russia even before the terrorist attack.
But now there have been a number of attacks against them.
In the city of Blagoveshchensk, a café run by a Tajik immigrant was set on fire.
There were also reports of physical attacks on three Tajiks in the western Russian city of Kaluga.
Meanwhile, the news organization Eurasianet
reported on threats, insults and harassment, including from Russian law enforcement authorities
.
In addition, people of Central Asian origin living in Russia were increasingly targeted for checks after the Moscow terrorist attack, Bishkek-based rights defender Aziza Abdirasulova told
RFE/RL
.
Several Kyrgyz nationals told
RFE
and
RL
by telephone on Sunday that they were detained upon arrival at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport.
Together with numerous other Central Asian nationals, at least eleven of whom were Kyrgyz nationals, they were then held in the airport detention center.
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Targeted by Russian security authorities – those affected report
“They put us in some kind of prison.
You did not answer our question about the reasons for the detention.
Our documents are in order, but those who came to Moscow for the first time were not allowed to enter.
Among us there are people from Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
The authorities took away our phones.
They forced us to sign some papers,” one of the arrested Kyrgyz told
RFE/RL
.
The Kyrgyz Embassy in Moscow also responded on Sunday to the tense situation for its citizens living in Russia.
She stated: “Kyrgyz nationals who have violated Russian migration regulations in the past will be sent back to Kyrgyzstan on the nearest flight to Bishkek.”
Tajik politician in exile: “There are definitely some secret services behind the attack”
The exiled leader of the opposition Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT), Muhiddin Kabiri, doubts to
RFE
and
RL
that Tajiks were involved in the planning and execution of the terrorist attack.
“There were definitely some secret services and experienced people behind the attack.
If the Tajik men were indeed involved, then they were most likely used as tools.
They were only second or third parties involved in this provocation,” Kabiri explained.
Meanwhile, some insiders have already expressed suspicions that Vladimir Putin himself could be behind the organization and execution of the attack on Crocus City Hall, including the economist and former Yeltsin advisor Anders Åslund.
They argue that Russia wanted to foment a so-called false flag operation to justify future aggression in the Ukraine war, they say.
Until now, the Central Asian states and former Soviet republics Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, which declared their independence from Russia in 1991, were considered allies of their large neighbor.
However, current events could seriously threaten the alliances.
(fh)