Russia Struggles to Contain Hate Crimes

A series of violent attacks and incidents with an apparent racist motive has added to Russia's reputation as a country where xenophobia is unchecked and on the rise. Last week, Siberia's oldest synagogue was destroyed in a fire. Authorities investigating the fire at the 125-year-old Irkutsk synagogue and adjoining community center have so far ruled out arson, but the incident has contributed to concerns about anti-Semitic sentiment. Around 10,000 of Irkutsk's 675,000 people are Jewish. Earlier in July, vandals painted swastikas and anti-Jewish slogans on the walls of a Jewish community center in Russia's internal republic of Mari-El. The building had been targeted before. The most serious recent incident occurred last June, when a prominent expert on Russian minorities issues, Nikolai Girenko, was shot dead in his St. Petersburg home. Police suspect neo-Nazis were behind the killing. Girenko, 64, had been an advisor in 15 top-profile court cases which saw extremists convicted. In the last such case before his death, he was a witness in the trial of a neo-Nazi group called Schultz-88 (88 is an international "skinhead" code for Heil Hitler, H being the eighth letter of the alphabet).