19 March 2004 19:16
Foreign students protest against "wave of racism" in Russia - TV
[Presenter] In St Petersburg, foreign students are holding two rallies at once to protest against a wave of racism.
The rallies have been provoked by the murder of a 20-year-old Syrian national in the centre of the city [on 13 March].
Aleksandr Zavyalov has the details.
[Correspondent] About 100 students took part in the rally to remember the Syrian student. (?Badawi Abdulqadir) was
murdered last week. So-called skinheads brutally beat up the young man and threw his body under a passing underground
train.
[Unidentified foreign student, in Russian] The man had come to study but he was killed. His parents had been waiting
for him [to return safe].
[Correspondent] Abdulqadir, 20, was a first-year student of the St Petersburg Electrotechnical Institute [LETI]. He
had not managed to make friends in Russia: he had been studying a lot.
[Anna Filippovich, teacher of Russian at LETI, captioned, interviewed] He was a young man who was perhaps best in
Russian [in his class]. He learnt everything he was taught.
[Correspondent] Unfortunately, this is not the first case when foreigners are murdered in St Petersburg: in February
skinheads attacked a Tajik family and killed a nine-year-old girl.
[Unidentified young man, interviewed] I know who killed her, but I won't tell you who it was because actually,
they were my people [as received].
[Farukh Satarov, graduate student at LETI, captioned, interviewed] The murderers of the nine-year-old Tajik girl are
known to the law-enforcement agencies, but they will not be punished. Why is the Russian government not taking any
resolute measures against the so-called Nazi organizations?
[Correspondent] Foreign students are mainly accusing the Russian police of inaction - for instance, there was not a
single policeman at the rally permitted by the authorities.
Students are planning to hold another rally this afternoon. They will hold it in another part of the city - near the
Electrotechnical Institute's dormitory - this time. Young people can be sure of their safety in the courtyard of
their institute, however anything might happen to them in city streets.
[Video shows the rally, interviews, institute premises, city streets, archive interview with a young man claiming to
know who killed the Tajik girl.]
[Centre TV] |
RUSSIA IN FACTS
