by David Filipov

May 7, 2017

 

MOSCOW — The arrests are decisive, dramatic, and nationally televised.

As the camera rolls, masked Russian counterintelligence agents jump out of a van and dash across a field outside Moscow. They take down a man in a blue coat, pin him to the pavement and pull a pistol from his pants. This is Abror Azimov, the TV announcer says, “one of the organizers” of last month’s bombing of a St. Petersburg subway train, which killed 16 people.

In the next scene, agents arrest Azimov’s older brother, Akram. They pull a grenade from a bag he is carrying. The elder brother, the announcer says, is also an accomplice in the bombing.

The detentions, broadcast recently on one of Russia’s most-watched news programs, are designed to show law enforcement’s resolve. They give the public a name for a new enemy in Russia’s struggle against domestic terrorism: migrant workers from Central Asia. And, some rights advocates worry, they are the harbinger of a new wave of repression against a vulnerable minority.

 

Full article:

www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/heres-thenew-target-in-russias-televised-hunt-for-islamic-state-terrorists/2017/05/06/e21b78ae-2a90-11e7-9081-f5405f56d3e4_story.html?utm_term=.6b23adef5228