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Russia: Ethnically Motivated Violence

Veronica Khokhlova · 14:10

Racially and ethnically motivated violence seems to be on the rise in Russia. Some of the most publicized cases that took place in April alone include an attack on a TV journalist of Azeri origin on a subway train in the center of Moscow; an attack on the culture minister of Kabardino-Balkaria that occurred as he was picking up his daughter from a dance class, also in Moscow; the St. Petersburg murder of Lamzar Samba, 28, a communications student from Senegal. Finally, around 6 PM yesterday, a 17-year-old Armenian was stabbed to death at Pushkinskaya subway station in the center of Moscow, by a young man who appeared to be a skinhead.

(UPDATE, 4/24: It has just been reported that the Armenian, Vagan Abramyants, was killed by his friend, Denis Kulagin, born in 1989. Allegedly, they had a fight about a girl they both liked. Kulagin always carried a knife with him. There were no skinheads in this case: the victim's and the attacker's friends - all of them fans of Lokomotiv, one of Moscow's football teams - made up the story to help Kulagin avoid punishment. Abramyants was an only son in an Armenian family that moved to Moscow in the late 1980s, to escape anti-Armenian pogroms in Baku, Azerbaijan.)

(UPDATE #2, 4/26: According to investigation officials, Abramyants and Kulagin had commmon friends - among Lokomotiv and Spartak fans - but didn't know each other. Abramyants said something rude to Zhanna Nefedova, Kulagin's 15-year-old girlfriend, and Kulagin stabbed and killed him. Video cameras installed at the station didn't record the killing, nor are there any records of skinheads getting off a Vyhino-bound train. Kulagin's mother says her son's interrogation lasted four hours and there was no lawyer present. Then the interrogators invited her into the room and announced Kulagin's choices: either he admits to killing Abramyants out of jealousy and gets a minimal sentence, or he faces 15 years in jail for ethnically motivated murder. Kulagin's mother told her son to choose the former, but he later retracted his confession. The Abramyants family lawyer insists on the skinhead version: they spent some time walking around the station before picking their victim; Abramyants was stabbed in the heart, which may mean the attacker wasn't an amateur; Abramyants was a nice, hardworking boy from a good family, not some violent football fan; two more guys were wounded, which possibly means there were several attackers.)

Below is the translation of a relevant post and comments to it (RUS) at another_kashin, the LiveJournal of Oleg Kashin, a Russian journalist:

Today

Itar-Tass Agency reports that a young man resembling a skinhead attacked an Armenia native and stabbed him many times with a knife near the Pushkinskaya metro station. The man died of injuries on the spot. After the attack, the bandit went down into the subway. The search for the criminal has begun.

It has been reported that the attacker was 18-20 years old, his head was shaved, and he was wearing a black jacket and black cargo pants. According to the law enforcement officials, the criminal is very dangerous.

I was at Pushkinskaya on my way out into the city at the time the corpse was lying there. Indeed, a kavkazets [a Caucasus native] and somewhat too cut up. Small fences were placed around him, inside the fenced off area two Slavic women sat, and across the central hall cops were holding hands and solemnly looking around, like they do at [Lenin's] Mausoleum. To pass the cops, one had to go up toward the Gorkovskaya pass, and then go down the adjacent staircase. This is what I did. Turned around to look at others. People are walking, talking, smiling, then look at the Armenian, and their jaws drop.

I told the cab driver about it. The cab driver laughs - well, our dear skinheads again, great.

(more…)

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The Lebanese Bloggers last week: Remembering The War, Plus Some Kisses

Mustapha · 10:37

April 13 marked the day of remembrance of the Lebanese Civil War. Lebanese Bloggers have pitched in to give their personal accounts of that terrible war. But before reading their takes, we must remember that the Lebanese have learned to kiss and make up. Just ask Jamal who wrote a whole post about the art of kissing in Lebanon. Now back to the war and the bloggers’ accounts.

Delirious writes on The Lebanese Blogger Forum:

When I think about the war, I feel as though it was always there, lurking in the shadows hand in hand with death and destruction. I was born to the lullaby of shells falling everywhere, and raised according to a simple Pavlovian principle: the moment your parents tell you to run to the shelter, even if it's in the middle of the night, you run, no questions asked

Jamal From Jamal’s Propaganda Site gives us various tidbits from his experience of the war:

I remember my parents not being able to go to my school because they feared for their lifes. My school was 10 minutes from home yet people there were of a different…. species, Nope,….. race, nah, ……. nationality, definitely not ……. religion, not necessarily, …….Sect , that's what it was.

Kais in Beirut To The Beltway gives us an account of the most terrible event he didn’t see:

Growing up I saw many horrors. But it was one that I didn’t see that stuck in my mind. When one day in 1982 we decided nowhere in Lebanon was safe anymore, we took a taxi to Damascus with the intention to fly to Paris. This was early August and “Christians” and “Druze” were massacring each other in the mountains. Our smoky taxi took us up and down the narrow and frightening Karameh road and passed through a ravaged Christian village. My father ordered me not to look, so I hid my head in my mother’s lap but I could hear the awfulness of what they saw: Mutilated corpses dug up from graveyards were put on display on rooftops, declaring to the world their guilt of being Christian in Lebanon.

Omega80 from The Blog of The Free Patriotic Movement offers further anecdotes:

I saw my mother crying at home one day, and my father trying to console her. The next day my father, sister, and I dropped her off at the airport, only then getting an explanation from my father on the way home that she had to go to Lebanon for a few days because my uncle was sick and she needed to help take care of him. It was only years later that I found out he had been kidnapped by a certain militia whose head is now currently in the Lebanese government

The Lebanese are bent on forgetting the bad old days and are trying to make a difference. Fortunately, it seems they haven’t lost their resilience: After giving up writing about politics for a while, Doha, from The Lebanese Bloggers has decided that she will continue to write to be able to make a difference to the life of her 20-year old brother, Abboudi.

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African women this week.

Sokari Ekine · 04:42

Congratulations to Kenyan women bloggers who have won Kenya Unlimited Kaybee awards 2006. Mshairi for best poetry blog; Gussaurus for best new blog and most interactive blog; Mama's Junkyard for best design; Au Lait for blogger one would most like to meet; and Kenyan Pundit for best political blog.

Nigerian blogger, Adefunke on adefunke discusses her love of food from the east of the country,

My love for eastern dishes has made me learn to cook them, so far I can make ogbonna and egusi. I am told my cooking would not be mistaken for an easterners though, too much pepper. This is a family problem originating from my paternal grand-father. I have also secured the recipe for banga which i must cook before going to school. Also fish pepper soup.

and her temporary inability to enjoy the food ” the food is smelling to you”. We've all been there!

Weichegud!ET Politics celebrates Easter in Ethiopia.

Pilgrimage to Self has a great idea for a book meme:
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal/blog along with these instructions.
DON'T search around and look for the coolest book you can find. Do what's actually next to you

What an African Woman Wants travels outside Africa to the Middle East and reads “Noor Al Hussein’s memoirs” which sets off thoughts around the Middle East as portrayed by the news media.

Often when I’m reading, listening to or watching news from the Middle East, I have an uneasy sense that I’m not looking at the real thing but having to peer into someone else’s eyes to see what they see, that is, what they choose to look at. As a Kenyan, an African who has been on the receiving of such scrutiny, it’s hard to shake off the feeling that what I see is not all there is to see…..I considered the opportunity to look through Noor al Hussein’s eyes into the Middle East a significant step forward.

Afro Blog posts on Somalia “ Somalia's Drought: ‘Children Are Dying, Everything is Dying

Nubian Soul writes on various scenarios involving with Naija men (Nigerian) and their respective outcomes.

scenario 3
You are introduced to the guy by a mutual friend. He barely looks at you, says hey but is completely dismissive of you, if you ask a question he either snaps at you or acts as if it's the simplest thing in the world and you are an idiot for not knowing the answer.
outcome
a) 2 weeks later you get a call, the guy has tracked your number down and is calling you at 1 in the am, on a week night for no good reason.

b) You bump into him again at another place, turns out you are really good friends with one of his friends, you hug and kiss his friend and then bounce. the next week your friend calls you and says the guy asked for your number.

Afromusing blogs on Earth Day 2006. Solar energy, beyond the cell phone and why Tanzania is serious about the environment.

My Thots voices her fury at a recent advert supporting a third term for Obasanjo in Nigeria daily newspaper “This Day”

I am getting more and more infuriated with Obasanjo (click here to see what he looks like) and his unrepentant sycophants who refuse to open their eyes, ears and minds, but are only interested in their bellies (May God do unto them as they do to the common Nigerian!).

Afrofeminista writes on the proposed Sexual Assult Bill that will be debated in Kenya this week. She raises a number of issues around the lobbbying of the bill such as why is it necessary to lobby for a bill that protects women from sexual violence.

So that, for me any MP who does not support this Bill is themselves either a rapist or potential rapist! And i think campaigns in support of this Bill, should put this out there! No more pussyfooting! These men and women (some) who are simply incapable of seeing beyond their orange and yellow political colors to vote correctly on matters of national importance, which is what this Bill is all about, should be shamed and put out to dry

She is also outraged that some have used the fact that the bill will cover the rape of boys and men as a way of trying to persuding male citizens to support the bill.

Everytime this statement is made, I want to gag! Yes gag! Not because I condone the rape of boys and men, but because the underlying message in this statement is, ‘please support the Bill because it also protects our most valued citizens - you, our boys and men' . Yes that is the message supporters of this Bill, unwittingly are sending out! We are saying that, society has little or no obligation to protect women and girls who by virtue of the status accorded to them in their communities because of their gender, are easy targets of sexual violence. We are saying that, the agenda to protect women and girls from sexual violence can only be considered if we are willing to once again show how it affects those members of society who seem to be valued more that others?

See also her post “Still Slogging” for more on this.

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