DUSHANBE, August 15, Asia-Plus — The Tajik Embassy in Moscow has expressed serious concern about Russian video showing the executive-style killing of two men identified as residents of Tajikistan and Daghestan and demanded that the Russian special services should provide data about this incident.
“The Embassy of Tajikistan is deeply indignant at and seriously concerned over appearance of video showing executive-style of two men by criminal identifying themselves as Russian National Socialists,” a statement released by the embassy on August 14 said. This disgraceful and heartless prank breeds incitement of hatred between peoples and creates an atmosphere of fear, revenge and conflict situation and thereby damages good relations between peoples, according to the statement.
“Irrespective of the fact whether this action took place actually or where, by whom and for what purpose it was made, Tajikistan strongly condemns these repulsive actions and stresses once again that no goal gives nobody the right of such heartless actions wounding feelings of peoples of different nationalities,” the statement said.
Since one of victims was identified as Tajik national, the Embassy demands that Russian law enforcement agencies should provide authentic information about this unprecedented brutal fact, the statement said.
A Russian ultranationalist group has posted a video on its websites that appears to show the execution-style killing of two men from Central Asia and the Caucasus.
Radio Liberty reported on August 14 that two men are seen kneeling on the ground in a forest, their arms and legs tied up. A large flag with a Nazi swastika stands in the background. “We”ve been arrested by the Russian National Socialists,” one of the two men says. A third man walks up to the captives and beheads one of them with a knife. The second captive is shot in the head and falls forward into a freshly dug grave. Two masked men then raise their arms in a Nazi salute. This the content of a two-minute video posted on the Internet by a little-known Russian organization calling itself National Socialism/White Power. The video identifies the two captives as “colonists from Tajikistan and Daghestan.”
It appeared on the Internet on August 12 but has since been pulled from most websites.
This is not the first time a Russian hate-crime video has been posted on the Internet. But antiracism experts say that while most of the slayings shown on these videos appear to have been staged, the latest footage seems very genuine.
Radio Liberty cited Vladimir Pribylovsky, the head of the Panorama political think tank in Moscow, as saying, “This film is the not the first of its kind, there have been other similar ones, says. “While the other films were probably fabricated, it”s hard to say with this one.”
The video has caused an outcry among human-rights activists in Russia and drawn heated debate on Internet blogs.
The Russian Interior Ministry has reportedly opened a probe into the video”s content and Russian prosecutors say they opened a criminal investigation into the video”s content.
But Svetlana Gannushkina, chairwoman of the Civic Assistance committee for refugees and forced migrants, tells RFE/RL”s Russian Service that Russian authorities remain reluctant to crack down on racially motivated attacks. “Every day, people tell us about similar cases,” she says. “This is taking on massive proportions. And the stance of law-enforcement and judicial organs is clear — for every such case, we have to fight to obtain a normal investigation and a sentence against [perpetrators].”
Russia has seen a surge in hate crimes in past years, most of which target people from Central Asia and the Caucasus.
According to Sova, a Russian group that monitors racially motivated crimes, 37 people have been killed so far this year in racist attacks — a 22 percent increase over the same period last year.
Few perpetrators of hate crimes have been brought to justice, as prosecutors continue to charge most assailants with “hooliganism” — a charge that carries relatively light sentences.
