Tajik Eurovision singer fears crackdown against poor migrants
IT WAS a heartfelt plea from Russia’s most famous Tajik migrant.
In a video message on Instagram Manizha Sangin, a singer who represented Russia at Eurovision in 2021, voiced widespread fears that the Moscow terrorist attack could cause a backlash against her community.
She said: “My grandmother has been gone these past 14 years. And in recent years I’ve thought a lot that I’m glad she did not live to see what is happening to us and to the world. I’m glad she didn’t see that brutal night, she doesn’t see how public torture is the law’s response to brutal atrocity.”
The attack at the Crocus City Hall music venue has brought attention once again to Russia’s difficult relationship with its migrant communities.
Eight people were arrested. The four accused attackers and three suspected accomplices are of Tajik origin. The eighth is Kyrgyzstan-born with Russian citizenship. All are from its Central Asian diaspora – a community often sits at the lowest economic and social strata of society and has been subject to racist harassment.
After the attack, there were reports of assaults and at least one migrant-owned business being burned down.
The day after arrests, racially abusive comments including “Russian for the Russians” and threats of arson appeared on the website of the barber shop where one of the suspects worked.
One Tajik man living in Moscow told news site Eurasia Net that his landlord had evicted him without explanation following the attack. He said: “Over the past year, the situation in Russia has been difficult. Constant [police raids on migrants], they treat you like you’re a criminal.”
On Friday evening, Russian security services announced that they had arrested three “nationals of a Central Asian country” who were planning a bomb attack in southwestern Russia.
St Petersburg courts have ordered the deportation of 418 foreign citizens, spokesman Daria Lebedeva said in a post on Telegram.
Shakhnoza Nodiri, the deputy head of Tajikistan’s Ministry of Labour, Migration and Employment, said “a lot” of people had called the ministry seeking advice on leaving Russia.
The Tajik embassy in Moscow advised citizens not to leave home unless necessary. Kyrgyzstan advised against all but essential travel to Russia, and Uzbekistan urged its citizens to co-operate fully with authorities.
After the attack, Vladimir Putin used a televised address to give vaguely worded instructions to law enforcement agencies to develop additional anti-crime measures “including compliance with the rule of law in the migration sphere”.
Mikhail Matveev, an MP from Samara, demanded a visa regime be introduced for Central Asians, while Mikhail Sheremet, an MP from Crimea, called for a ban on immigration until the end of the war in Ukraine.