Published March 30, 2024
In the hours after the attack, videos began surfacing on Russian social media channels of the police detaining and brutally abusing the alleged attackers, with one appearing to show a suspect having part of his ear cut off and subsequently forced into his mouth. The men had been in Russia as migrant workers on either temporary or expired visas, authorities said.
Russians are understandably shocked and saddened by the attack. But in the days since, that emotion – combined with the disturbing videos – appears to have unleashed a wave of xenophobia from some towards Central Asian migrant workers in general.
On the social media platform X, CNN saw posts that showed people looking for taxis, asking for their rides to be cancelled if the driver was Tajik. One purported photo of a conversation said, “If you are Tajik, please cancel my ride.”
A torrent of abuse has also reportedly been directed towards a barbershop in the city of Ivanovo, where one of the alleged attackers worked. The owner of the shop told Russian journalists that her phone had been ringing “non stop” with death threats, and is quoted by a Russian daily newspaper, Moskovsky Komsomolets, as saying, “I’m pregnant and I don’t know what to do. I’m afraid to go outside.”
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SOURCE: www.cnn.com
RELATED: Russia: Shameful Pride in Torture of Terrorism Suspects
Authorities Should Condemn, Punish Not Condone Ill-Treatment
Federal Security Service officials bring Dalderjon Mirzoev, a suspect in the Crocus City Hall’s massacre, to the Basmanny District Court in Moscow on March 24, 2024. © 2024 Sefa Karacan/Anadolu via Getty Images
Published March 30, 2024
Berlin, March 29, 2024) – Russian authorities tortured, recorded, and shared recordings of the torture, of at least two men held as suspects for the monstrous March 22, 2024 attack on a concert hall, Human Rights Watch said today.
Photographs and videos of the arrests and torture of suspects, presumably taken by law enforcement officials, started surfacing on March 23 on Telegram channels that cover Russian military and security services. On March 24, a judge in Moscow in closed hearings imposed pretrial detention on the four suspects, who were taken to the court with visible, extensive injuries.
“Nothing, not even a massacre this heinous justifies torture, far less makes it legal,” said Tanya Lokshina, associate Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The rapid and widespread sharing of these videos appears to be no accident but rather some kind of appalling boast by the Putin government of its brazen disregard for basic rights, fundamental humanity, and the rule of law.”
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SOURCE: www.hrw.org
RELATED: After Russia, is China the Islamic State’s next target?
Beijing’s repression of Muslims could put it on a collision course with the terror group
Published March 28, 2024
On March 22, just five days after Vladimir Putin won his fifth presidential election, terrorists struck Russia, killing over 140 people, with many more still missing.
At least four people thought to be members of Islamic State Khorasan (IS-K), a branch of the Islamic State (IS) group, indiscriminately fired on the crowd at the Crocus City Hall concert venue in a Moscow suburb. Eleven suspects, including four Tajik nationals, were detained.
Putin criticized the attack as a “bloody, barbaric terrorist act,” while suggesting that Ukraine was to blame. Kyiv has flatly denied any involvement, and with IS releasing a statement and video connecting its operatives to the attack, Ukrainian involvement seems even more unlikely. Eventually, Putin determined that Islamic extremists were behind the onslaught, though Russian officials insist that Ukraine and its Western backers played a role.
