The Embassy of Tajikistan in Moscow has sent a note to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia over detention of the 21-year-old resident of Tajikistan Amirsho Huseinov after a brawl with Nazi skinheads in Moscow on June 23, 2021.
Radio Liberty’s Tajik Service, known locally as Radio Ozodi, says Amirsho’s relatives consider him a victim, while the Russian authorities accuse him of hooliganism,
Tajikistan Ambassador to Russia Imomuddin Sattorov told Radio Ozodi on June 29 that the Tajik diplomatic mission demanded an objective and transparent investigation of the incident in its note.
“I am sure that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation will order an objective investigation in the brawl with skinheads,” Tajik diplomat noted.
According to eyewitnesses, a group of Nazi skinheads were walking down Tolbukhin Street in the evening of June 23 chanting xenophobic slogans “Russia for Russians, Moscow for Muscovites” and shouting insults at people of other ethnicities.
There was a brawl with skinheads, in which Dagestanis and a citizen of Tajikistan participated. Several people, including Amirsho Huseinov, were detained by police.
Russian known human rights activist Valentina Chupik wrote in Facebook group “We Migrants” that a group of Nazi skinheads staged a procession on the Tolbukhin Street in the evening of June 23 street chanting xenophobic slogans “Russia for Russians, Moscow for Muscovites.”
A group of Dagestanis and the 21-year-old native of Tajikistan Amirsho Huseinov did not like this. A dispute began between them and the skinheads and the skinheads’ leader invited one of his rivals to fight him one-on-one. In this fight, the skinheads’ leader was beaten and asked for mercy. Seeing that their leader is defeated, the skinheads attacked the "non-Russians” by the whole crowd.
Chupik wrote that the skinheads were soon released, and criminal proceedings were instituted under the provisions of Article 213 of Russia/s Penal Code (hooliganism) against those who opposed Nazism.
Racism in Russia appears mainly in the form of negative attitudes and actions by some Russians toward people who are not ethnically Russian. Traditionally, Russian racism includes anti-Semitism and Tatarophobia, as well as hostility towards various ethnicities of the Caucasus, Central Asia, East Asia and Africa.
Experts note that there are large numbers of skinheads in Russia, responsible for a significant number of xenophobic attacks, including killings.
