Paul
Goble
Staunton, November 5 – Yesterday, as
some Russians marked the Kremlin-backed National Unity Day, non-Russian
activists picketed Russian missions abroad to demand independence for their
co-ethnics at home and to show that at present, November 4 is in fact “the Day
of Russian Chauvinism” (idelreal.org/a/30248465.html
and idelreal.org/a/30253686.html).
Among the cities where such
demonstrations occurred and during which participants unfurled banners
declaring in various languages that “the Kremlin kills native nations” were in
Turku and Helsiniki in Finland, New York in the United States, and Kyiv and
Kharkiv in Ukraine (idelreal.org/a/30252990.html
and idelreal.org/a/30253968.html).
In Helsinki, the non-Russian
protesters were joined by regional activist Andrey Romanov who carried a sign
declaring that “the Urals will be Fee!” and “Free Idel-Ural.” In Kyiv, those in front of the Russian
embassy held up signs again in various languages insisting that “we are not one
people” regardless of what the Kremlin says.
Among the immediate demands the Kyiv
demonstrators made was for the formation of aa independent investigation of the
case of Ramil Shamsutdinov, the soldier in the Russian military who shot eight
of his fellow soldiers because they had mistreated him apparently for his
ethnicity and religion. Shamsutdinov is a Tatar and a Muslim.
The demonstrators said that such a
commission should include representatives of the Union of Soldiers Mothers
Committees, the PACE commission on legal questions and human rights, and
representatives of the indigenous peoples of the Russian Federation.
Those who assembled before the
Russian consulate general in Kharkiv held signs in honor of Albert Razin, the
Udmurt scholar who committed suicide to call attention to Moscow’s destruction
of his native language. One speaker there, Vadim Pozdnyakov, told the grup that
“the national republics in Russia must acquire independence.”
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