It was intended as a
friendly guide to Russia for labor migrants from Central Asia, but instead it
turned into an insult. The brochure with practical advice on how to deal with
border guards, police and other authorities was illustrated with depictions of
migrant workers as paint brushes, brooms and other tools of low-skilled work.
The anger exploded
this week. The government of Tajikistan formally urged Russian authorities to
remove the book from circulation, and representatives of the Uzbek community
voiced their outrage. Activists see the book, published in Russia's second
largest city, as a reflection of the discrimination against the growing number
of impoverished, mostly Muslim, migrants in Russia who are working
construction, cleaning offices, sweeping the streets and collecting the
garbage. "It's xenophobia pure and clear," said Lev Ponomaryov, a
veteran Russian human rights defender. "They show residents of St.
Petersburg as humans and depict migrants as construction tools."
Even though "A
Labor Migrant's Handbook" was promoted on a city government website,
authorities denied any connection to the publication when outrage erupted after
bloggers discovered it and publicized it online last week. A non-government
organization that published 10,000 copies of the book in the Russian, Uzbek,
Kyrgyz and Tajik languages insisted it just wanted to provide useful
information about everyday life in Russia. "We didn't mean to insult
anyone with this brochure — on the contrary, we aimed to help labor migrants
learn about their rights and avoid getting into trouble in this city,"
said Gleb Panfilov, deputy head of the Look into the Future group that
published the book.
Panfilov said his
group had people from the ex-Soviet nations of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and
Kyrgyzstan look at the proofs prior to publication and received no complaints.
He said he couldn't understand the public outrage now, many months after its
release. But in a country where dark-complexioned migrants are commonly victims
of hate crimes and frequently live in miserable conditions, others are not
surprised by the anger.
Alimzhan Khaidarov,
the leader of the Uzbek community in St. Petersburg, said he was offended by
the brochure. "They compared us, representatives of the ancient Uzbek
culture, with construction tools. And not only us, but also representatives of
Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan," Khaidarov told The Associated Press. He said
rights groups representing migrants from Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan
will consider filing a lawsuit against the publisher.
On Monday, the Tajik
government denounced the brochure as insulting and asked Russian authorities to
stop its distribution, according to the Interfax news agency. More than 1
million of the impoverished ex-Soviet nation's 7-million population live and
work in Russia, and money they sent home totaled around $3 billion in 2011,
equivalent to around half of the mountainous nation's gross domestic product.
Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan also have been major exporters of labor to Russia.
Uzbek activist,
Suratbek Abdurakhimov, called the publication an ethical mistake. "They
should have consulted with representatives of the diasporas before the
publication and found a more appropriate way to give the information," he
said. He added that he was against giving the issue too much publicity to avoid
fueling xenophobic sentiments among local residents. "Local people are
already to a certain extent irritated with migrants. Why irritate them
more?," he asked.
Though hate attacks in
Russia peaked in 2008, when 115 people were killed and nearly 500 wounded,
according to Sova, an independent watchdog, the numbers are still high. A
police crackdown on neo-Nazi groups helped stem the tide, but Sova said 20
people were killed and at least 130 others were wounded in racially motivated
crimes last year. The labor migrants
often suffer from horrific labor conditions, a complete lack of social
protection and medical care. "The government has done nothing to protect
their rights," Ponomaryov said. "There has been nothing but
words."
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