“They’re doing the right thing, damn it!”

13/06/2006 Lilit AVAGYAN

Recently, the Russian Gazetasng web page wrote an article about the recent murder of Armenian Arthur Sardaryan, 19 in Moscow committed by skinheads. Readers could also write their opinions about those murder cases. There were more than 100 notes on that page concerning this nationalistic movement, which didn’t really express any condolences, rather sentences like the headline of this article. Armenians are accused of criminal, political and economical crimes in Russia. They wrote and brought examples of historical cases to show that Armenians have committed crimes in Russia. In addition, they didn’t condemn the skinheads for what they had done, including the cruel murders of young Armenians. The article also mentions names of Armenians, who are known in Russia as representatives of “The Criminal World” and initiators of different criminal activities. It states certain names, along with their occupation and writes that they use the money they get to bribe the court and get positions, as well as nominate the people they know in the government. They also write how many people they have in their groups and where they do what they do. I must confess that this information, which is compiled along with the article about the skinheads murdering the young Armenian spreads the word about those kinds of activities and such non-humanistic and cruel behavior towards Armenians and citizens of countries in the Caucasus region. It creates grounds for similar crimes to be committed in the future. But this is just one side of the story, to which our authorities had to react promptly and take actions to stop such cases in Russia. Russia is not Budapest, and the stupid Russian skinheads are not Ramil Safarov to be condemned by our authorities and help Armenians organize demonstrations on streets to express their concerns. First, these cases and the petitions of Ara Abrahamyan, leader of Russian Armenians, didn’t make Armenians living in Moscow organize anything and express their concerns. Only after the last murder did some young Armenian girls and students studying in Russia gather near the Kremlin to light candles express their condolences to the victims and their opinions about the cruelties of the Russian nationalistic groups that kill people with dark skin. The Russian Armenians Union and the Armenian Embassy in Moscow didn’t take part in that demonstration.

The official Yerevan didn’t make any announcements to protect the rights of Armenians living and working in Russia. The only official to take such a step was the deputy minister of foreign affairs Gegham Gharibjanyan, who told journalists this week that the Armenian foreign affairs ministry had taken certain steps and the fact that the Russian president replaced the general prosecutor of Russia had something to do with the current events. He also added that our authorities have sent a diplomatic note about this directly to the press secretary of the Russian ministry of foreign affairs.