The goal of the migration policy, actively discussed in the State Duma, is pretty settled–considering disastrous population decrease, the citizenship in the first place should be granted to people with a “culturally proximate to the Russians”, or in other words, “our compatriots”. Legally, these terms make no sense, but their casual meaning is pretty simple. Implicitly, or openly, but the migration services are prone to create favorable conditions for granting admission to Russia the so-called title nation. More straight politicians make even blunter statements—Russia must collect Russians, because, follows the explanation, the demographers are anxious that the number of Slavic population in the country is considerably diminishing.

I don’t think that public discussions of the migration policy did any good to the consolidation of the society. Normally, when the demographers express anxiety caused by this reason, the “non-Russians” get beaten up in the streets for no particular reason. Russia encompasses a lot of nations apart from the title one, may be it will make sense to talk about them, bringing home as well? The public discussion of the priorities, in my opinion, is somewhat unethical. Loving based on the ethnic principle, in all possible ways, looks a lot like chauvinism.

Recently I witnessed quite a symbolic incident. A woman got in the bus, middle-aged, quite educated, as it seemed. There were no vacant seats. Right next to her a group of young men was sitting, drinking beer and roaring in laughter. A bit further away, an immigrant was trying to make himself discreet, his black ears however spoiling the ambiance. The woman bravely stepped towards the guy, and, having grabbed the aged man by the ear pretty handily, dragged him from the seat. Of course, the ears are unlikely to provide one with the information about their owner’s citizenship, but the race is obvious. This woman must have been protecting the right of the declared title nation, simultaneously pointing lawlessness of others.

The hearing of a case of murderers of nine-year Tajikistani girl Khursheda Sultonova in St. Petersburg showed that ethnic origin and corpus delicti are interconnected. Last week the court attained its verdict. One of the eight defendants was fully discharged. The others were sentenced to the terms from… one and a half to five and a half years for hooliganism…. The trial lawyer of the injured party said that “no one apologized”.

The girl was murdered in February 2004 in St. Petersburg. She, her father and cousin went from the skating-rink and a group of teenagers attacked them. The Tajikistanis were beaten up. The men survived, but Khursheda got 11 (!) knife wounds and died. St. Petersburg’s Governor Valentina Matvienko then said that this was an ethnic crime and the city’s honor had been offended… She promised that committers of the crime would be found quickly and punished with the utmost rigor of the law. Alas, they were found not quickly, and the sentence was mild. Maybe, it happened, because the committers of the crime were Russians? Many people think that if (God forbid!) migrants had murdered a Russian girl, the sentence would have been much tougher….

Nine jurors of twelve concluded that the guilt of the sixteen-year-old major accused person, who preformed the fatal for Khursheda knife stab, has not been proved. Together with the “murder article” the “racially motivated crime” component was also withdrawn from the case.

It is possible that the team of inquiry worked poorly and the evidence gathered was insufficient. But what we are discussing here is not the quality of investigation, but it, being prejudicial. The ethnic principle is becoming the major player in court and blind Justice makes the right guess concerning ethnic origin quite often. It is worth resorting to Captain Ulman’s case. He has been exonerated by the jury twice! It is entirely evident that if jurors had been the Chechens the officer would have been plead guilty.

In Russia the group of civil resistance to fascism is gaining grounds, created in response to the sentence of Sultonova’s case. Thus, the society reacted to the bizarre sentence. Many famous people, scholars, policy-makers called upon to “invigorate the battle with displays of ethnic and religious intolerance and to put a stop to expanding these attitudes in Russia”. The representatives of Russia’s Muslim communities have sent President Vladimir Putin the letter of indignation about the “inadequate sentence”.

Akram Murtazaev is a laureate of The Russian Journalist Award “Zolotoye Pero” ("The Golden Pen").

April 6, 2006