DUSHANBE, April 11. 2016, Asia-Plus — An ugly dust-up in Moscow, seemingly provoked by racial hatred, has landed a migrant laborer from Tajikistan in the hospital and threatens to leave him blind in one eye,
EurasiaNet.org
reported on April 10.
On the evening of April 8, Tajik nationals Sulaymon Saidov was targeted in an apparently unprovoked assault that culminated in him being shot four times with an Osa traumatic handgun.
Saidov’s cousin, Dilshod Abdurahmonov, told
EurasiaNet.org
that the incident started when the attacker approached Saidov on a metro train and made a threatening remark: “Either you disappear or it will be the end of you.” Judging the man to be drunk, Saidov, who was in a metro carriage with another one of his cousins, 19-year old Muhammadjon Hakimov, ignored the warning.
“But then suddenly the man pulled out a pistol and fired one shot. This all happened inside the carriage. And then he wanted to shoot another guy — Muhammadjon Hakimov, who ran away in fear. When Sulaymon stood his ground, he was shot again twice in the head. When he left the carriage, the [attacker] followed him and in the fight that ensued he shot [Saidov] one more time in the stomach,” Abdurahmonov told
EurasiaNet.org
.
Abdurahmonov said his cousin’s is serious but stable, but doctors have confirmed that Saidov will likely be blind in one eye.
Saidov has received some support from the Tajik Embassy in Moscow and a pledge of further help from Civic Assistance Committee, a Russian nongovernment organization that assists migrants.
A 60-year old Muscovite, Sergei Tsaryov, has reportedly been detained on suspicion of instigating the attack and been placed under two months detention pending investigations. He is facing charges of attempted murder.
There is a long history of racially motivated violence in Russia toward people from the Caucasus and Central Asia, so this instance could well fit into that pattern.
Still, last year did see a considerable reduction in racist violence in Russia, according to the Sova center, which closely monitors the issue. One explanation offered by Sova is that police have intensified their pressure on extremist nationalist movements, possibly in an effort to minimize their scope for reabsorbing returnees from fighting in Ukraine into their ranks and thereby posing a threat to political stability.
Authorities in Russia are particularly eager to avoid a repeat of the ethnic unrest sparked in the Moscow district of Biryulyovo in 2013 following the murder of a 25-year old man by a citizen of Azerbaijan.
That anxiety appears to have motivated the state media blackout on the grisly murder of a five-year old girl in Moscow at the hands of an allegedly mentally disturbed Uzbek nanny.
Still, Sova notes that Russian far-right group still tried to capitalize on this killing, focusing on the nanny’s ethnic and religious background.
What is known of the attack on Saidov suggests a random incident, but one that unconsciously taps into simmering concerns about the presence of foreign laborers in Russia. With the country’s economy in dismal shape and unlikely to recover soon, resentment fed by the perception that foreign workers are taking away jobs and depressing salaries is only set to fester, despite attempts by the government to ignore the issue.
