vanguard blog | April 13, 2010 | 22 comments

Russian Judge Who Convicted Neo-Nazis is Murdered

Yesterday, a Russian judge who had tried high-profile racist murder cases was shot dead in the stairwell of his home.

Eduard Chuvashov had sentenced a group of ultra-nationalists, mostly teenage skinheads, to up to 23 years in jail for the murders of migrant workers from Central Asia. Chuvashov had faced threats on several radical websites, and authorities believe his killing is most likely related to the work he did.

Three years ago, I went to Russia looking for the source of viral videos I had seen on the Internet showing neo-Nazi skinheads kicking and beating people in the streets with no apparent provocation. In the Vanguard documentary "From Russia With Hate," I reported the attacks were coming almost daily in Russian cities.

I was in Moscow on Hitler's birthday, April 20, and found foreign students confined to their dorms because nationalist fervor surrounding the anniversary was so high it wasn't safe for dark-skinned people to go outside. I filmed ultra nationalist politicians preaching hatred to crowds of disenfranchised youth in Moscow, and I interviewed a member of parliament who openly espoused using violence to terrify immigrants from former Soviet territories in the Caucuses and Central Asia.

I also visited a secret, military-style training camp, where we watched neo-Nazis crawl through fire learning to become guerilla fighters. It was there I met the creator of many of the Internet attack videos, who proudly showed me his "propaganda films" of youth gangs setting upon and bashing nonwhites to terrorize the ethnic immigrant community.

Not long after my visit, one of the leaders I interviewed was arrested and jailed, and I wondered if the Putin government was finally cracking down on the ultra-nationalists. Far from it.

Although Vladimir Putin has technically stepped down from the presidency, his increasingly nationalistic government—run by Dmitry Medvedev—has shown little appetite for subduing the neo-Nazi movement. The killing of Chuvashov comes just over a year after two open opponents of hate, a prominent human-rights lawyer and a young journalist talking to him, were shot and killed in downtown Moscow. They were shot in the head by a masked gunman who escaped in broad day light.

As Hitler's birthday rolls around again, attacks on immigrants are up 400 percent from when "From Russia with Hate" first aired on Current, making Russia the center of the most violent anti-immigrant movement in the world.

Russian ultra nationalists have long been able to operate outside the law. If I were in Russia today, this is the question I’d be asking: Will Chuvashov's killing spark outrage and action—or only further suppress such rare resistance from government authorities?

 

Watch "From Russia with Hate," winner of the 2009 Columbia-duPont Award and the 2008 Livingston Award for Young Journalists.

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22 comments // Russian Judge Who Convicted Neo-Nazis is Murdered

  • morirjedi
    • 0
      morirjedi  

    • Must meet violence with greater violence. Crack some skinhead in his head. These punks are so weak. I you push back the bully doesn't know what to do. Too long have people let this go. Take the fight to these fucked up people.

    • 2 years ago
  • Dejan_Croatia
    • 0
      Dejan_Croatia  

    • i think its weird that russia is so hateful when their population is decreasing a lot the only way they can save it is by being friendly not doing this redneck,racist bullshit

    • 2 years ago
  • Almibry
    • 0
      Almibry  

    • Have you noticed that your story seems to be having the same effects as the pods? Keeping brown people from wanting to go to Russia? Did they ever train on people who fight back?

    • 2 years ago
  • Haruki_Hirasawa
  • islek
    • +1
      islek  

    • Such a great pod. I was fascinated by it then, and continue to be now. Such unfortunate news that Chuvashov's life was ended by the hands of someone else. His work thankfully has not gone unnoticed, and will not be in vain.

      Thanks for keeping us all informed of this situation. This is the sort of information/news that drew me to Current in the first place.

    • 2 years ago
  • EthicalVegan
  • ozoneocean
    • 0
      ozoneocean  

    • This is truly deplorable, as is the whole neo-nazi situation. But I don't see why the acts of crazies are ALWAYS linked back to Vlad Putin, no matter what the action was or where it happened in that colossal country. There's always this hint that he's somehow secretly responsible or secretly sanctioning these things. I see that as pretty stupid since no real link is ever shown- we have a real story, with facts and research, and then this nebulous anti-Putin stuff just tacked on.
      I doubt the situation with migrant workers would be much different if Putin left entirely. Even back in Soviet times when they bought people in from Africa as students there were STILL attacks against them even back then, it was just more hidden because of the manufactured message of a global proletarian brotherhood they were trying to spread.

    • 2 years ago
  • artemis6
  • chaos1
  • CaptB
    • 0
      CaptB  

    • In every terrorist training camp I always see Monkey Bars. These little Neo-Nazi's and their training camp better have a professional set of Monkey Bars installed. I think the CIA should just start looking for Monkey Bars all over the world in search of radical training camps.

      One bottle of Vodka and if you can make it across the deadly Monkey Bars of death...you to can promote hatred and intolerance...or live in a trailer (Hutaree citation for humor).

    • 2 years ago
  • dalistuff
  • Miss_Maggie
  • BrittanyL
  • yepyep
  • Dagum
    • 0
      Dagum  

    • Remind me not to study in Russia anytime soon. Christof, how were you, a foreigner when you did From Russia with hate, able to return from Russia alive?

    • 2 years ago
  • carmalite
  • jdubsy
  • dgreene
    • +2
      dgreene  

    • I didn't realize that this story that I saw on Current a couple of years ago has continued to get worse and worse. Thank you Christof for continuing to tell this important story -- and I hope that things turn around soon.

    • 2 years ago
  • vicgal
Christof

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