SPB Times - "Citizens Cool on Outsiders"; beat them

The story I posted about earlier this week here and here was indeed covered in the SPB Times as I had hoped/expected it would be. I didn't think their headline was quite appropriate, although to be fair the article was about a survey taken St. Petersburg, and the recent attacks were used to illustrate the problems faced by non-ethnic Russians in that city. You might have thought that another such spate of attacks would have inspired a more serious-sounding headline, though.

Citizens Cool On Outsiders
St. Petersburg Times, Tuesday, March 29, 2005
By Galina Stolyarova And Irina Titova STAFF WRITERS

[...]The three foreign students who had non-Slavic appearances were injured in separate attacks in the city over the weekend.

Manuel Bernard, 26, an Angolan student of the Agriculture Academy in Pushkin, was attacked by several young people in metro wagon at Nevsky Prospekt metro station on Sunday night. Desire Deffo, deputy head of the African Union in St. Petersburg, said Monday in a telephone interview that Bernard had been hospitalized with head injuries and slash wounds from a knife. He was in a satisfactory condition. A St. Petersburger and a Muscovite were detained in connection with the attack, Interfax reported. Deffo said Bernard had described the attackers as skinheads.

Saiful Islam, 26, a fifth-year medical student from Bangladesh, was attacked near Lesnaya metro station on Saturday afternoon. About seven young people attacked him from behind and gave him head injuries that required hospitalization, Mozibul Haque, head of the city's Bangladeshi community, said Monday. Islam said his attackers did not look like skinheads - they were dressed in ordinary clothes and didn't have shaved heads, Haque added.

Also Saturday, a group of people on Nevsky Prospekt beat up a Chinese student of the St. Petersburg Conservatory. He was hospitalized with head injuries, Interfax reported.

Deffo said the city government is taking too little action to deter the attackers from striking again. "Many attackers get away with these attacks without punishment and feel they can keep doing it," Deffo said. Most of the attackers are skinheads, he added. [...]