 Russian nationalists go after immigrants
Dec. 2 -- Anti-immigrant sentiments are rising among
Russia's nationalists, while attacks against Asians, blacks,
and other people of color grow, reports UPI news agency quoting officials.
Estimates of Indians in Russia vary from 40,000 to 50,000
while the number of Pakistanis and Bangladeshis are smaller
but still significant, according to a Swedish South Asian
study.
Early Indian settlers to Russia were traders who founded an
“Indian town” in Astrakhan in southern Russia. This “Indian
town” is known to have existed in the 17th and 18th
centuries. Later on Indian traders visited Moscow and St.
Petersburg as well.
In the 1920s Indian members of the Communist International
also found refuge and sometimes their death in Soviet
Russia.
It was the post-Independence era and particularly
post-Stalin era in Russia, however, that witnessed the
growth of desi students, particularly medical students in
big cities like Moscow, Leningrad, and Kyev. Some of the
ex-students managed to stay longer in the Soviet Union. They
arranged marriages with local women but few got Soviet
citizenship.
In the 90s, during liberalization period, Indian
entrepreneurs found Russian soil good for their investments
and work, while Bangladeshis found Russia with its anarchic
internal life and porous borders suitable as the stepping
stone for moving westwards, says the study.
As for Pakistanis in Russia, they remain mostly students,
particularly medical students. There is a VHP branch in
Moscow and the Pakistani mosque at St. Petersburg
Polytechnic as signs of the establishment of the ethnic
minority, rather than simply communities of sojourners on
Russian soil.
Racially motivated ad campaigns have been seen in Moscow
with such slogans as "Let's clean our city of trash." Some
of the ads have been dubbed in French after members of a
largely Arab-Muslim immigrant community rioted recently in
France.
"Look at what's happening in France. Forget about talk of
xenophobic policy -- you have cars burning on highways!"
said the leader of a nationalist party, reports The Los
Angeles Times. "I don't want the same thing to happen in
Russia."
About 50 Asians, blacks, and Caucasians died in racially
motivated violence last year, mainly in street attacks by
gangs of Slavic hooligans, said the LAT report. An NTV
television report says at least 40 foreign students have
been attacked this year in the city of Voronezh.
Immigration critics argue cheap salaries accepted by workers
are preventing Russians from earning a living wage at
construction sites. But the Russian government, faced with
dwindling population, knows that the nation's growth will be
assured only with a reliable supply of immigrant labor, the
LAT report adds.
Indian-Canadian
student abducted in Iraq
DEC 1: An Indian-Canadian student who had gone to Iraq on a
peace mission, has been kidnapped in Iraq, reports UNI news agency quoting sources in New Delhi.
According to the source, Harmeet Singh Sooden, a 32-year-old
student of Auckland University in New Zealand, and three
other peace activists from the United Kingdom and the United
States were on a peace mission in Iraq when they were taken
hostage at gunpoint on Saturday.
A group calling itself the Swords of Righteousness Brigade
claimed that two Canadians, including Sooden, a Briton and
an American were ''spies working for the occupying forces''
under the guise of working for a Christian group, UNI adds.
Sooden was working for the Christian Peacemaker Teams.
The US and Canada-based Christian Peacemaker Teams
has blamed what it called the Undocumented occupation of Iraq by
US and British troops for the kidnapping of its four
workers.
The CPT has said ''the actions of the US and UK
governments'' were responsible for the abduction of the four
activists.
The organization is an umbrella group for pacifist church
activism. It had a team in Iraq since October 2002, working
with US and Iraqi detainees and training others in
non-violent intervention and human rights documentation,
says their statement.
Many prominent religious and political leaders in Iraq and
Palestine have appealed to the abductors to release the
four.
Musharraf wants overseas Pakistanis to vote in 2007 poll
DEC 1: President Gen Pervez Musharraf has directed his
government to devise a procedure for overseas Pakistanis to
vote in 2007 general elections. Mr Musharraf was talking
with workers delegation in Rawalpindi comprising of leaders
of labor union, Tanga union, taxi union and rickshaw union.
The delegation presented a of Rs 21 million check to him
collected under the ‘Jholi Phelao’ campaign for earthquake
relief, reports media. |
