THE DARK SIDE OF THE WHITE NIGHTS
FADE TO BLACK
10.00.00
ON-SCREEN TEXT
"It was not a typical murder...
"The swastika on the crime weapon was a message.
"It just meant that those who killed the student were members of the neo-Nazi organisations".
Prof. Dmitry Dubrovsky
Hate crimes analyst
10.00.20
DISSOLVE TO BLACK
10.00.21
MUSIC
10.00.22
MOHAMMED: When I came in Russia in 2000, the first thing that got my attention about Saint Petersburg is that it is A REAL historic city.
The houses, they date back to past centuries.
And the architecture has been well thought.
Every Saturday, we went for a stroll in the city...
We would visit the museums, or just walk in the streets.
10.00.45
MUSIC
10.00.47
MOHAMMED: May (the month of May) is the beginning of the summer White nights...
We found it fascinating that the sun would go down at around midnight... and it was necessary to always have a watch... because trusting the sun for time was just misleading...
10.01.06
MUSIC
10.01.09
MOHOMMED: There is that fabulous side... But we soon found out that we are not free to go for a walk wherever we wanted... Russians may do that, not us... our skin colour is just a death threat.
10.01.26
SKINHEADS SHOUTING AT A FIRE PARADE
10.01.27
NEWSREADER
Racism and violence are on the rise in Russia.
10.01.29
STUDENTS' DEMO
Down with fascism
10.01.31
SKINHEAD COCKS RIFLE AND FIRES
10.01.32
NEWS READER: A 28-year-old student from Senegal has been shot dead in Saint Petersburg...
10.01.35
DESIRE (AFRICAN ASSOCIATION LEADER): This case was the most shocking for foreigners...
10.01.38
NEWS READER: Police found a swastika painted on the murder weapon...
10.01.40
MOHAMMED: When I got to the scene, I saw a body lying there, dead. But... I couldn't take it that it was Samba... It shouldn't have happened.
10.01.50
CUT TO TITLE
The Dark Side Of The White Nights
10.01.57
FADE IN
MOHAMMED: Sometimes loneliness makes it impossible to have someone to relate to... to have someone to talk to or someone to confide in.
But when he was around I could rest my mind in confiding in him; I could tell him whatever I had in mind. And... he could also tell me what he thought.
10.02.17
ON-SCREEN TEXT
Saint Petersburg
7 April 2006.
10.02.19
NARRATOR: 7 April 2006...
The day that revealed the dark side of the White nights to Mohammed...
10.02.26
MUSIC AND STREET NOISE
10.02.29
MICHEL TANOBIAN, SURVIVOR (IN RUSSIAN): I can't exactly tell what happened...
I saw nothing...
10.02.31
PROSECUTOR OF SAINT PETERSBURG (IN RUSSIAN): A group of African students were returning from the Apollo Night Club...
10.02.38
MICHEL TANOBIAN, SURVIVOR (IN RUSSIAN): I didn't see much...
I just can't understand why people can be so cruel...
PROSECUTOR OF SAINT PETERSBURG (IN RUSSIAN): As they reached this arch, someone suddenly ran out of it.
He aimed at the Africans and fired, killing one of them killing one of the Africans.
10.02.55
MUSIC AND STREET NOISE
10.02.57
NARRATOR
For these police officers, the scene has nothing unfamiliar...
It is also a usual scene for these African students...
10.03.04
MUSIC
10.03.10
MICHEL TANOBIAN, SURVIVOR (IN RUSSIAN): We just came here to study...
Nothing more... We will not take anything away
10.03.20
DISSOLVE TO BLACK
10.03.22
MUSIC
10.03.26
NARRATOR
28 year-old Samba Lampsar is the victim...
He was studying for a degree in telecommunications... Now, he will never graduate.
10.03.38
MUSIC
10.03.41
MOHAMMED (VICTIM'S FRIEND): Time flies away... but feelings stick around.
10.03.47
MUSIC
10.03.49
MOHAMMED: after his death, I went to see his body at the mortuary.
10.03.54
MUSIC
10.03.56
MOHAMMED
I wanted to make sure he was handled with dignity. Because, when I spoke to his mother, she asked me to check out how the body was kept.
10.04.06
MUSIC
10.04.09
NEWS READER
Sall's death was just the latest in a long series of incidents targeting Africans, Asians and non-Slavic people from inside Russia or other ex-Soviet republics. In one of the worse cases there, a nine year-old girl from Tajikistan was beaten to death by skinheads, while walking with her family two years ago.
10.04.30
DESIRE DEFOE, HEAD, ST. PETERSBURG AFRICAN UNION (IN FRENCH): I should say that it is actually very worrying... For us, Africans alone, from November 2005 to May 2006, the murder toll amounted to seven: Five blacks and two Northern Africans... SEVEN deaths, this is an average of ONE murder per month.
10.04.53
BEREAVED VIETNAMESE STUDENTS: He was a good student... His mother is sick...
10.04.59
MUSIC
10.05.01
NARRATOR: Just like Mohammed, these Vietnamese students are suffering the loss of a friend.
10.05.05
BEREAVED VIETNAMESE STUDENTS: ... His sister is getting married soon... His father died a year ago and today he has been killed.
10.05.19
NARRATOR: Vu Anh Tuan was set upon on an October day by a group of thugs near a metro station...
They beat him up before stabbing him to death.
Tuan, a student at the Saint Petersburg polytechnic Institute, was just 20 year-old...
His loved ones will never see his smile again...
10.05.39
STUDENTS PRESSING FOR AN INVVESTIGATION: Please, when will you investigate it?
- The head of police promised it will be fast.
- How fast? After a month, a year?
- Or after two months?
- We will give the police necessary means... security and escort...
10.05.57
MUSIC
10.05.59
PROFESSOR DUBROVSKY, HATE CRIME SPECIALIST AT THE EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY OF ST PETERSBURG: In the different mass media, we can only read reports about the attacks against foreign citizens... The real number of attacks is up to several dozens per week, I would say...
10.06.17
MUSIC
10.06.28
MICHEL TANOBIAN, STUDENT: Look... In September, I mean September 2005, when Samba was still alive, a Congolese student lived here with his girlfriend.
At the girl's request, he went out in the night to buy her something from a shop... She waited for him to return in vain... When she went after him, she found him disembowelled.
On 24 December, we were here among friends... we decided we should be part of the Christmas festivities... So we were getting dressed for a night out when Alphonse's cellular rang...
The news was that a Cameroonian was stabbed to death... the caller insisted ‘his body is lying here,'.
HE IS LYING HERE... RIGHT NOW.
It went like that until they killed Samba...
You should agree that enough is enough.
10.07.27
MUSIC
10.07.27.14
ON SCREEN TEXT
Saint Petersburg,
24 September 2006.
10.07.29
NEWS READER: An Indian student has been killed in the Russian city of St Petersburg, in what police say may have been a racially motivated attack.
10.07.37
A FRIEND OF THE MURDERED STUDENT (IN RUSSIAN): When the Police arrived they started asking such questions, ‘what's your name?' ‘Are you drunk or not?'... rather than helping the man first of all! He is a human being after all! The ambulance took 25 minutes to arrive. 25 MINUTES! It is unbelievable!
10.07.53
ANOTHER FRIEND OF THE VICTIM: The medics in the ambulance said to him, ‘Get up! Get up! You won't die! Get up!' As he got onboard the ambulance, his condition worsened. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't do anything.
10.08.10
MUSIC
10.08.11
NARRATOR
Outside this student hostel, the young men found their friend, Nitesh Kumar Singh, lying unconscious...
He was bleeding from multiple stab wounds to the neck...
His attacker assaulted him in the neighbourhood, and he managed to reach THE ADDRESS where he lived. But it was too late.
The 27-year-old medical student was pronounced dead, shortly after being rushed to hospital...
10.08.35
MUSIC
10.08.38
FADE TO BLACK
10.08.40
MUSIC
10.08.44
NARRATOR: The Apollo Night Club... the last place on Earth where Samba had been, body and soul...
Minutes later, he parted company with the living.
10.08.55
MUSIC
10.08.57
MOHAMMED, SAMBA'S COUSIN: When I got to Krasna Kordesk, the street, I saw a group of people... it was still a bit dark... and there was a body in the middle of the road... I wanted... I ran to get close, wondering at the same time, ‘is he wounded? Have they called the medics?'
Some people replied, ‘medics for what? Samba is dead.'
Right there, I said he never did anybody wrong. It was such a guy who had no enemy... Everybody loved him. How could that happen!
They started then to tell me that they were in a group of six and that they were fired at, and... he was hit.
I saw a body lying there, not moving. But... I couldn't take it that it was Samba... It shouldn't have happened.
10.10.03
MUSIC AND STREET NOISE
10.10.05
ANNA SHAROGRADSKAYA, ST PETERSBURG PRESS INSTITUTE: I remember, a man from Nigeria came here to study. He studied well, got married, had two children, he had a Russian wife. He bought a restaurant he had rented for many years and it was a successful business. Once he was invited on TV along with other foreigners of different countries and races. The message of the programme was that foreigners of different countries may be successful in Russia as business people. The same evening he was returning home and he was shot. I think he was the first black person who was killed here in this city.
10.11.03
MUSIC
10.11.06
NARRATOR: Ever since the murder of that Nigerian, more than 36 people were killed in Saint Petersburg, and there has been a debate about the motivation behind the killings.
Despite the victims having in common the difference of their skin colour, hooliganism had consistently been blamed for the killings.
Following the murder of Kursheda Sultanova, the 9-year-old Tajik girl, attacked and left to die in the snow, Police arrested her attackers...
They were charged with hooliganism and brought to justice...
As a result of the hooliganism charge, the heaviest sentence handed down was a five years jail term...
10.11.48
PROF DUBROVSKY: Again, they preferred the motivation of hooliganism and they denied the motivation of hate in this crime... It is a pity!
10.12.00
FADE OUT
10.12.02
SOUND OF OCEAN WAVES
10.12.07
NARRATOR: The morning Samba was shot, across the Ocean, back home in Senegal, his family was asleep... The phone call that woke his father up was terrifying.
10.12.19
BADARA SALL, SAMBA'S FATHER (VOICE-OVER): Any human being can easily assess the distress of parents... Parents who wake up in the early morning to the news that their son, who did all his studies in Russia... who was about to go back home... who wrote his thesis he was to defend the following days... that he has just been murdered...
No need for guessing further... You should know what we went through.
10.12.54
MUSIC
10.12.54.08
MOHAMMED ON THE PHONE: Hello
10.12.58
BADARA SALL: It was one his friends there, who told us that Lampsar had just been murdered...
I... Asked him if he saw the body, himself... He confirmed it. It is one of his friends...
That's how we got the news...
10.13.18
MUSIC
10.13.35
BADARA SALL: What gives a more tragic dimension to this case is that, you may know, Samba was born in Moscow...
He was born in Moscow and his mother studied in the former Soviet Union. She teaches the Russian language... She teaches the civilisation and the History of Russia... So this gives a particular weight to this affair, this tragedy.
10.14.05
STUDENT DEMO: No to Fascism
10.14.09
BADARA SALL: We knew this kind of problem existed in Russia... We knew there was a growing problem of racism there, but we didn't know how serious it was. We became fully aware of it, when we got the news our son was murdered.
10.14.35
FADING TO BLACK
10.14.36
MUSIC
10.14.41
NARRATOR:
On leaving the Apollo Nightclub, the students walked down this street...
They didn't know they had some sneaky company.
Hidden in this archway, the attacker had already cocked his rifle.
They only realised he was there when the weapon fired.
Also there was an unlikely witness: THIS CCTV CAMERA...
It caught the drama as it unfolded.
10.15.08
MUSIC
10.15.11
NARRATOR: On this grainy footage, the group is seen walking past the gunman's hideout...
10.15.18
The attacker darts out, and as he shoots, the group scatters.
10.15.25.16
Left behind is Samba's lifeless body.
10.15.28
MUSIC
10.15.29
MICHEL TANOBIAN, SURVIVOR: It was on a Thursday...
The sixth of April...
We were invited to the annual party of our department.
We went and did our performance until dawn...
In the morning, we left at around 5:45 AM.
As we walked away in a group of six, we suddenly heard a loud Boom... We were all startled...
When I looked back, I saw a man with a gun.
Then I said, ‘Guys, they fired.'
We all started off running.
We ran for a few seconds and then stopped to realize someone was missing...
When we looked back, we saw a body lying flat.
‘Who's missing,' we asked and inspected around us... We quickly found out... SAMBA!
Maybe, he didn't hear the report of the gun...
Because I didn't hear him scream... I heard nothing.
10.16.28
MUSIC
10.16.33
He was already dead...
10.16.35
MUSIC
10.16.40
MOHAMMED, SAMBA'S COUSIN: The person who did it, if he knew Samba, even in the slightest bit, he wouldn't have done it. I am absolutely certain of that...
If he allowed five minutes to speak to him, he wouldn't have been able to kill him...
He was a peaceful guy who was not keen on useless discussions...
He always wanted to make friends.
10.17.06
SAMBA (ARCHIVE FOOTAGE): What's this musical instrument?
10.17.09
MOHAMMED: In his own institute he told people about Africa...
10.17.14
SAMBA HOLDING A BALAFOND: It is a balafond.
10.17.15
MOHAMMED: ... About Senegal, Ivory Coast and the other African countries... He told them everything.
10.17.22
CHEERING STUDENT AUDIENCE: Here come our Africans... They have just come from Africa...
10.17.27
VOICE: Show them those movements again.
STUDENTS: No, we cannot repeat.
10.17.34
MOHAMMED: Despite the attacks... everywhere against foreigners, he often said that all Russians are not racists and xenophobes... that it is a few Russians who know nothing about Africans; he insisted not everybody is to blame.
10.17.57
MUSIC
10.18.03
NARRATOR: When the killings started to spiral, militant action wasn't an initial option for foreign students.
10.18.09
MUSIC
10.18.10
However, keeping silent became impossible...
10.18.14
STUDENT DEMO: Down with Fascism
10.18.18
NARRATOR: And like here, after Kamdem's death, students now resort to demos, to drive an SOS message home.
10.18.25
DEMONSTRATOR 1: Police in all the districts know who are the attackers. They are just keeping silent. They are all being diplomatic rather saying everything is alright, that it is just hooliganism. But what's hooliganism if not murder? If Governor Valentina says "stop it", the police will bring it under control. Police in all districts knows the problem.
10.18.51
Down with fascism
10.18.54
ALIOUN: Whom should we complain to? Probably to the president! May it be that they are not invested with enough authority or that there's not enough power or money to cope? Maybe the president himself can answer.
10.19.08
MUSIC
10.19.10
STUDENT: Nothing is changing... and we send a coffin home almost every week. It's too much, you know. We live here just for our studies... We came here to get an education. We just want to get that education and leave. And no-one will be taking Russia back to Africa.
10.19.29
STUDENTS CHANTING: Down with the skinheads... Down with the skinheads.
10.19.32
NARRATOR: The reaction now to every murder is demonstration in the street.
10.19.36
MUSIC
10.19.37
NARRATOR: And tacitly, some non-white students have made contingent slots on their academic schedules...
They know well a friend may be killed at any time, and their solidarity will be much needed.
10.19.49
STUDENTS CHANTING SLOGANS
10.19.52
FADE TO BLACK
10.19.54
MUSIC
10.19.59
NARRATOR: That April morning when Samba was gunned down, even before the start of a formal investigation, officials knew the argument of hooliganism had hit a dead end...
10.20.09
SOUND EFFECT TRANSITION
10.20.10
NARRATOR: This is the murder weapon... a rudimentary rifle that might well have been used for any other criminal purpose...
10.20.17
MUSIC
10.20.20
NARRATOR: But look at this symbol on the butt of the weapon.... A SWASTIKA!
And these two letters: WP, initials for White Power... the slogan of White supremacists, whose Russian counterparts campaign to keep what they call the purity of the Slavic Race.
10.20.39
MUSIC
10.20.41
PROF DUBROVSKY: In this case, the special sign on the gun, the swastika on the gun means the people who killed the Senegalese student were members of the neo-Nazi organisations. It was specially made by those people simply to inform the world of the exact motives of this crime.
10.21.06
DESIRE DEFOE (VOICE OVER): This case was the most shocking for Africans and foreigners in Saint Petersburg... and even for Russians... Because, you know, this way of shooting someone with a gun, just because he is Black, has been probably unheard of for a century.
10.21.29
PROF DUBROVSKY: This murder was not very typical... It wasn't very typical, especially because, before they did everything using knives, not guns...
10.21.41
MUSIC
10.21.42
DESIRE DEFOE (VOICE OVER): Why then did they use the gun? If before, they used knives, and today they use guns... what will they use next?
10.21.52
MUSIC
10.21.53
NARRATOR: The brutality of Samba's murder and the means used to achieve it cause an outpouring of grief...
The day following the student's death, Saint Petersburg witnessed one of the biggest protests ever against a racist killing in the city.
10.22.08
MUSIC
10.22.09
NARRATOR
And with the overwhelming evidence, found on the murder scene, the city officials couldn't avoid, this time, admitting if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck.
10.22.20
SOUND EFFECT TRANSITION
NEWSREADER: Russian Prosecutors have detained a suspect in the killing of 28-year-old Lampsar Sall, a fifth year student at the state Telecommunications University in Saint Petersburg.... Sall was shot in the neck as he left....
10.22.31
PROSECUTOR PRESS CONFERENCE (VOICE OVER): We have connected this group with the murder attempts and murders, which took place in our city... We connected them with these people, a truly aggressive group, responsible for the worsening situation of extremism...
10.23.00
DESIRE DEFOE (VOICE OVER): That's what we have been expecting... The many previous attacks went without a single word of condemnation from the government... As if nothing wrong ever happened...
10.23.08
SKINHEADS SHOUTING
10.23.10
NARRATOR: The youths arrested for Samba's murder are part of this thug band: THE MAD CROWD GANG.
Here, they are on a routine training on how to take on a potential target...
10.23.22
SKINHEADS SHOUTING WHITE POWER
10.23.26
NARRATOR: The slogan they shout was also part of the branding they scribbled on Samba's murder weapon.
10.23.31
SKINHEADS ON PARADE
10.23.35
POLICE VAN REVVING
10.23.36
NARRATOR: A month after Samba's murder, the police of Saint Petersburg got a tip-off on the whereabouts of some of the gang's prominent leaders.
As a result of the unprecedented swoop the police made against Mad Crowd, this young man, Ruslan Melnik, and other members of the gang were arrested and charged with murder.
But during the operation in THIS NEIGHBOURHOOD, the gang leader, Dmitry Borovikov, tried to resist the police.
They shot him...
And the bullet wounds proved fatal.
10.24.10
PROF DUBROVSKY: They started with a quick response, but there's one thing I am a little bit concerned about. After they arrested leaders of the Mad Crowd gang, they officially declared they have been practically responsible for all of the most serious hate-related crimes. It seems to me that it is a kind of attempt to solve all the issue, boiling it down to the responsibility of one single gang.
10.24.44
CAMERA FLASH SOUND
10.24.45
NARRATOR: As if to prove the officials wrong, it was only a few months after the crackdown on the Mad Crowd gang that the Indian student was murdered.
10.24.53
ANGRY INDIAN STUDENT AT A UNIVERSITY GATHERING: What hope do I have I could walk alive from this Institute tomorrow?
(Talking to a friend: No way calming down.) What Guarantee do I have? I pay $5000, but what guarantee do I have that my mother will not get my dead body in a coffin?
10.25.18
UNIVERSITY OFFICIAL: We can understand the feelings. And I must understand them. (It doesn't matter who we are; we are officials and each of these crimes goes through our heart.)
10.25.23
MUSIC
10.25.32
NARRATOR: The Mad Crowd gang that murdered Samba are just one of many groups of a Russian breed of SKINHEADS active across the former Soviet State...
Espousing fascist ideologies is their trademark...
And sadly this man - Adolph Hitler - is their role model.
10.25.50
MUSIC
10.25.53
PROF DUBROVSKY: There are different types of skinheads. Some are active members of different street gangs... and there are skinheads who try to be killers, combatants who would rather fight in the streets.
10.26.10
SKINHEADS CHANTING AS THEY WAVE FLAMES
10.26.12
DESIRE DEFOE (VOICE OVER): Skinheads are generally young men aged between 16 and 22... not older. All of those skinheads I had a chat with are young men.
10.26.21
PROF DUBROVSKY: Usually, these groups are quiet small. And there is a kind of rule... because the usual size of a skinhead group is not up to 20 persons - 25 maybe - and each group has a charismatic leader on top...
10.26.40
SKINHEADS PARADING
Russia for Russians!
10.26.44
PROF DUBROVSKY: Socially, they are from low-middle class families and most commonly their parents have lost their work and social status during the Perestroika.
10.26.57
SOUND EFFECT TRANSITION
10.26.58
NARRATOR: As a matter of fact, it was with the Perestroika that the skinhead phenomenon became noticeable in Russia.
10.27.04
DESIRE DEFOE: There were racism and xenophobia in the Soviet Union, as well, but it is was just dormant. The Perestroika came with the democratic effect... People started to speak openly, presenting their requests, and wishes... And as you know, wishes can be negative or positive. So, since the Perestroika there has been a struggle to cope with the collapse of the Soviet Union, which was a strong asset, and also since then Russia has been in search of its identity as a nation.
10.27.11
SOUND EFFECT TRANSITION
ALI NASSOUR, COLUMNIST: It was an overnight change... from Iron curtain and totalitarian State, just overnight, the country changed to something different and people said, now we are free.
10.27.51
SOUND EFFECT TRANSITION
PROF DUBROVSKY: You know, in the Soviet times, under the totalitarian society, it was difficult to openly oppose the state. It was difficult to be bandits or hooligans, because the totalitarian State took under control everything, including any kind of unpredictable activities on the street.
10.28.10
ALI NASSOUR: With the freedom of action... that is where the violence started.
10.28.16
MUSIC
10.28.20
NARRATOR: In Russia today, there are about 50 thousand skinheads, across the country...
Saint Petersburg has the largest skinhead community with a figure of ten to fifteen thousand.
10.28.32
MUSIC
10.28.38
SKINHEAD COCKS RIFLE
10.28.39
NARRATOR: Rooted in the neo-Nazi ideologies, the young men believe they have a war to fight for the protection of the white purity of Slavic people...
10.28.48
SKINHEADS FIRES ROUNDS
10.28.53
NARRATOR: They are constantly training for that war...
10.28.56
MUSIC
10.28.58
SKINHEAD 1 IN A TRAINING CAMP(VOICE OVER): We are members of the Saint Petersburg branch of the Slavonic Union. We regularly train in shooting, so that our fighters could protect our country from any invasion at any time.
No... Not invasion... F***!
10.29.19
From what...?
SKINHEAD 2 (VOICE OVER): We invite all Slavic people, Russians, those who care about the safety of their country to join us, and train regularly in shooting, so you would be always ready to protect yourself and your loved ones and of course your country, no matter from what.
Glory to Russia!
Glory to Russia!
10.29.50
MUSIC
10.29.54
YELIZABETA IVANOVNA, ANTI-FA: They start of course with just believing that Russians are better than anybody else and also with paranoiac ideas that Russians are oppressed by everybody else...
Therefore, they attack foreigners; they attack not even foreigners, but Russian citizens of not commonly Russian appearance and they attack people they consider special enemies...
10.30.18
MUSIC
10.30.19
ANNA SHAROGRADSKAYA: I should say that Russia is famous for having at least one enemy, whether it was some sort of concrete enemy or abstract enemy...
Because they need an enemy to explain why they are not successful, why they are not happy, why they do not live decently.
10.30.46
SKINHEAD WRESTLES A FELLOW TO THE GROUND
10.30.49
NARRATOR: With an enemy to defeat, the skinheads believe it is critical to be always fit for combat.
10.30.54
SKINHEAD VIOLENTLY THRUSTS A FELLOW ONTO THE GROUND
10.30.57
NARRATOR: Though training to keep in good shape is part of their daily routine
10.31.01
THUG FIGHTING
10.31.16
FADE TO BLACK
10.31.17
MIX OF MUSIC AND STREET NOISE
10.31.21
NARRATOR: In Saint Petersburg, and in other Russian cities, getting murdered is just the worst that can happen to a person of dark skin.
10.31.28
MUSIC
10.31.32
NARRATOR: Physical assaults and racist name-calling are part of the normal daily life of these students.
10.31.38
MUSIC
10.31.41
NARRATOR: Most of them are friends of late Samba.
10.31.43
MUSIC
10.31.45
NARRATOR: They say it is only here in their dormitories that life is safe...
10.31.48
MUSIC
10.31.50
ALPHONSE, STUDENT (SUBTITLE): I have been assaulted five times and I remember every single assault.
It is a shame.
Five times in six years, this has been almost once a year I came across those guys...
Thanks God, I am still alive, which is not the case for some who arrived here... my friend Kamdem (may he rest in peace), Samba (may they rest in peace); they were my friends.
Kamdem, the Cameroonian (may he rest in peace), he hardly spent two years here. It was three months since he arrived when he was killed on that 24 December, a Christmas day, when the Youth celebrated Christ's birth... Christ's birth that should be celebrated with other new births and with joy in the families... Unfortunately, he died on that day. That was their willing...
So, I can say I have been lucky, because, this is my sixth year, and I have always managed to ride the trouble out when it came...
But, you get to know that it is not funny!
10.32.45
A STUDENT: Once. I was in transit through the Metro...I was sitting with a friend and right in the opposite seat, there was a Russian. When he stood to go off, he spat at me and shouted ‘Niger! Niger!'
10.33.04
CLAUDE, ANOTHER STUDENT (SUBTITLE): When the students walk in the streets, those who are too dark to blend in, they are like fans, sweeping left and right. At nightfall, they'd better be quick getting a bus to rush home... It is a state of war!
10.33.24
A STUDENT (SUBTITLE): We are the most concerned by the problem... Our skin is easily noticed in town... Even from afar, you can see it's a Black Man coming. I should beg the pardon of our North African brothers... You are less concerned than we are. We, Sub-Saharans, we're too worried. We have many problems here... Any of us will be slurred as "chorniye". "chorniye" is Russian for ‘nigger'.
10.33.49
STUDENT (SUBTITLE): While you are being mugged, people will pass by...
Reading newspapers or smoking...
They wouldn't care to be bothered. For them, it is normal they beat you up... Others... would even join in, helping to beating you up.
Yeah... some would join in and passers-by will not rescue you. They think it's none of their business.
10.34.17
ALPHONSE: I once bumped into two of those guys in the metro...As they started the beat-up, I saw a thousand hands on me... I might've been dazed by the blows, but I saw all the hands of the world on me.
10.34.29
MUSIC
10.34.37NARRATOR: Understanding the Russian skinheads' phenomenon has often proved a bit of a puzzle for many analysts...
It can be argued the failed promises of the Perestroika instilled hatred into the youths... However, it is hard to explain the adherence of the skinheads to the ideologies.... of THIS MAN...
10.34.55
MUSIC
10.34.57NARRATOR: These are scenes of Saint Petersburg under the Nazi blockade during the Second World War...
Corpses in the streets... the tale of starvation and mass demise by cold, as Hitler's army shelled the city...
In six words, IT WAS A TIME OF ORDEAL.
10.35.18
MUSIC
10.35.19
SKINHEADS PARTYING
10.35.20
NARRATOR: Yet today in the city, Hitler has a right to the celebration of his birthday.
10.35.24
MUSIC
10.35.27
PROF DUBROVSKY: Every foreign student is strongly advised to stay at home on 20 April.
Because... usually, they try to find someone to kill...
10.35.38
SKINHEAD SHOUTS
10.35.39
DESIRE DEFOE: For us, it is a date... Let's say we know that there are institutes who ask their students not go out on that date. It's a fact... And it is unfortunate.
10.35.54
MUSIC
10.35.58
NARRATOR: It is not just colored people who feel justified in worrying on Hitler's birthday.
The vandalism and defacing of Jewish graveyards are standard practice every year.
10.36.09
MUSIC
10.36.11
CHIEF RABBI OF SAINT PETERSBURG: There's one practical way... we have to heighten security, especially at the cemetery and other public Jewish places.
10.36.18
MUSIC
10.36.22
RABBI: The fact that people could celebrate the birthday of a man who, through the war, caused the death of so many of their local people, and still can call themselves nationalistic people is very strange.
10.36.36
MUSIC
10.36.38
RABBI: Jews are historically blamed for so many things throughout the World history... Unfortunately these times are not different in that... It is something that Jews got used to living with...
10.36.52
PROF DUBROVSKY: When I started to read the extremist texts on the Internet, I was very surprised how they pretend to explain what is a paradox... They argue that Jews manipulated the History, by inventing the story of the Holocaust to gain some political power in the World...
10.37.14
RABBI: People tell you they lived through it... You can't deny a fact. People lived through it; people saw it. Someone who denies it denies the truth and it is hard to argue... There's no way having to argue about that.
10.37.25.10
GUN SHOT
10.37.25.13
ALI NASSOUR: Those people who go out there, I mean the skinheads, it is the young generation who, normally, have got their grand-dads and grand-moms, still alive, and most of them have been victims of the Blockade... It appears strange to any person in his right mind, to see such guys going out in the street, on 20 April, celebrating Hitler's birthday...
10.37.57
MUSIC
10.38.00
NARRATOR: In the university dormitories, the prime targets of the racist attacks wonder as well about the ideological proximity between the skinheads and Hitler...
But they are more concerned about the society's tolerance towards the attackers...
10.38.16
MUSIC
10.38.16.13
CLAUDE, STUDENT (SUBTITLE): A FACT: when you are being mugged, people see it as just another brawl... but when you manage to have the upper hand on your attackers, people would then step in to stop you fighting...
10.38.28
A STUDENT (SUBTITLE): The day they beat you up, you managed to get the best of the fight and they called the police. Some Russian girls were passing nearby. Those girls are from our university. They recognized their campus mates, with whom they even share a hostel. So, when the police took on the case, the girls testified, saying they witnessed the attack against the students. And that was proved to everyone. But... because they were blacks or because they were Africans or foreigners who fought back when they were attacked, they lost the case...
10.39.09
ALPHONSE (SUBTITLE): And those who beat us up sued.
The aggressors...
We were fined $4.000....
40.000 Rubbles... about $2.000
10.39.17
STUDENT (SUBTITLE): Here, there is an unwritten law by which you must rather run when you are beaten up...
Because if you are arrested fighting back against a Russian, it is just as bad!
So, if you spot someone looking awkwardly at you, run before he gets you... Just run beforehand!
If you try to defend yourself, a legal suit will be your next trouble...
10.39.49
ANOTHER STUDENT (SUBTITLE): How about their idea of an African... a black? A black, in their eyes, is a savage... a stupid who only deserves a good beat-up... Speak to the open-minded Russians, and they will tell you everything... what people think.
They say it is what they are taught at school...
Cultural stereotypes. How about what they are taught at home!
10.40.15
MOHAMMED: I just can't understand why they should hate someone for the colour of his skin...
10.40.20
MICHEL: Samba once told me that we carry our coffins when we go out... You are never certain to come back alive... never certain to come back...
But when you come back, it's like you've just spent 10 years...
10.40.32
FADE TO BLACK
10.40.34
MUSIIC
10.40.41
GIRENKO'S FRIEND (SUBTITLE): He died from the hand of a hired assassin...
He died for using professionalism, tact and intelligence to fight racism, nationalism and racially motivated crimes, which he did with professional skills, tact and intelligence...
10.41.00
MUSIC
10.41.01
NARRATOR: Skin colour is not the only factor in getting someone in trouble with the skinheads...
10.41.06
MUSIC
10.41.09
NARRATOR: This man - Nikolai Girenko - felt he had an obligation to help stop the neo-Nazis...
10.41.17
MUSIC
10.41.19
NARRATOR
Sadly enough, he is not around today to tell what it was like to oppose the skinheads...
10.41.25
MUSIC
10.41.29
YELIZABETA IVANOVNA, GIRENKO'S COLLEAGUE: Mr. Girenko was a specialist in anthropology and ethnography... As a specialist in African culture, he became an expert in hate crime and hate-motivated crimes... then he had to analyze newspapers issued by Nazi organizations and public speeches of certain radical figures and so on. Therefore, Mr. Girenko was often invited to give his official expertise....
10.42.01
MUSIC
10.42.02
ANNA SHAROGRADSKAYA: He testified... knowing perfectly well, that those people against whom he was speaking were dangerous... But as a real scholar, he didn't use any excuse for not telling the truth. Fortunately for us and unfortunately for him, he was the scholar who could identify a racist, a fascist, and an anti-human text as such... and he could prove that... Fortunately for us, because there are really few people who can do that... not because they are afraid, they are not trained to do that.
10.42.55
MUSIC
10.43.01
RUSLAN LINKOV: Any murder, the death of any person is a tragedy. And the death of such a close friend and an outstanding man is such a huge loss for all his relatives, for all of us... It is the man whose loss we constantly feel.
10.43.23
MUSIC
10.43.26
NARRATOR: As part of his ethnography studies, Nikolai Girenko stayed in Africa for some considerable time.
10.43.32
MUSIC
10.43.34
NARRATOR: He socialized with local people in Zanzibar, Southern Africa, and fell in love with African culture.
10.43.40
MUSIC
10.43.42
NARRATOR: He even gave a Swahili name to his daughter, born in Zanzibar.
10.43.46
MUSIC
10.43.48
NARRATOR: Back in Saint Petersburg, as a matter of logic, Nikolai became a number-one friend of the African community...
10.43.56
MUSIC
10.43.58
DESIRE DEFOE: I think we are indebted to him forever... And about our organization, its creation, I must say he had been among those who supported it... He was a direct collaborator... And I should say that... his death just proved to us that the situation is not as simple as we might think.
10.44.24
MUSIC
10.44.29
NARRATOR: Among the human right activists in Saint Petersburg, there's still a sense of shock about how Nikolai was murdered.
10.44.36
MUSIC
10.44.37
YELIZABETA IVANOVNA: This is well known... it was 11:00 am... when... somebody gave a bell at the door of his flat... He lived in an old house in Petrogradska Strana in Saint Petersburg... his daughter came to the door... I think they had reason to worry because she didn't open the door... she asked, ‘what do you want?' and an unknown man said, ‘I want to talk to Mikhailavich, which is Girenko's middle name... She said, ‘alright' and called her father without opening the door.
The father came and asked, ‘what business do you have with me?' He also didn't open the door.
Instead, there was a shooting... and the wooden door was not defensive enough... The bullet went through and entered his shoulder... He lost blood so quickly.
Of course if the blood could be stopped immediately, he could have survived, but the ambulance didn't arrive immediately and people die very quickly in such circumstances.
10.45.39
MUSIC
10.45.48
YURI BELAEV: Yeah I am racist. There's nothing wrong with that.
10.45.53
MUSIC
10.45.53.22
NARRATOR: Many Russian nationalists, including this man, are happy Nikolai is dead.
Yuri Bilaev, president of the Russian nationalist Freedom Party is angry that Nikolai's testimonies landed him many times in trouble.
He had been convicted for extremism and the paper his party edited has been banned thanks to Girenko's expertise.
10.46.16
YURI BELAEV: You know, I don't feel sorry for him... Why? Imagine... police broke into my home in masks to terrorize my wife, my six-year-old son and me. Tell me please, ‘what should be my attitude to that man?'
10.46.41
MUSIC
10.46.42
NARRATOR: Yet, the sensational claim on Nikolai's murder would come from a little known movement - Ruskaya Republik, meaning Republic of Russia.
Shortly after the scholar was killed, the movement claimed the murder on its website.
And then a representative of the shadowy organization went on TV to further stake their claim...
10.47.07
MUSIC
10.47.07.17
REP, RUSKAYA REPUBLIK: We sentenced him to death, not as a scholar, but as an enemy of the Russian Nation...
Russian Republick is entirely responsible for the sentence.
10.47.17
MUSIC
10.47.20
NARRATOR: Ruskaya Republik might have claimed the murder; they failed to get some credit for it...
According to the police investigation, the same gang that killed the Senegalese Student murdered the academic.
10.47.35
MUSIC
10.47.43
NARRATOR: Girenko's murder came as an illustration of the danger facing whoever dares oppose the Russian Neo-Nazis.
10.47.50
MUSIC
10.47.51
YELIZABETA IVANOVNA: A few days after Mr. Girenko's death, at night, there were telephone calls to my flat, and a male voice said, ‘Girenko is just the beginning of our list... you are next.' He used my full name, and knew where I work... he warned, ‘we will finish off your office... we will kill you...
Heil Hitler!'
And the door of the flat where I lived was polluted with a big Nazi cross and the sign 88, which means ‘Heil Hitler'. ‘88' is like the number... and 8 is age.
10.48.27
PROF DUBROVSKY: I was attacked myself... near my home, at the entrance of the building where I live. I was surprised because I have never been involved in serious crime cases. But in comparison with what happened to my colleague Girenko, that was absolutely a joke.
10.48.49
RUSLAN LINKOV: I constantly receive threats... Just recently, an American colleague asked me to send him a list of threats I received during this year. When I looked into my e-mails, just for early October, I found 15 physical threats... that for the first 10 days of October...
So what, I receive threats everyday.
10.49.20
MUSIC
10.49.21
NARRATOR: A year and a half after Nikolai's murder, the Neo-Nazis proved again that they took any opposition as an act of war.
10.49.29
MUSIC
10.49.30
NARRATOR: In a knife attack that lasted hardly one minute, they left this lifeless body in the street.
10.49.35
MUSIC
10.49.40
NARRATOR: Timur Kacharava, an anti-fascist youngster was the victim.
10.49.45
MUSIC
10.49.47
YELIZABETA IVANOVNA: Timur was a 19-year-old student of the faculty of philosophy of Saint Petersburg university...
He... was also a musician, playing bass guitar.
But the important thing is that he was a vegan, who espoused pacifist ideas and was an anti-fascist.
He and his friends participated in regular actions, ‘Food not Bombs'.
Every week, they cooked vegan foods and took it to a place close to their home, where needy people are usually seated... and they offered them warm soup and so on...
After such an action, they went to a bookshop downtown...
Some of the boys entered the bookshop, and two of them stayed outside... smoking.
It was Timur and his best friend Maxim...
Suddenly appeared 11 Nazi skinheads... screaming anti anti-fascist slogans... They had knives... they started to beat them.
Timur was almost immediately knifed into his neck, and he died from loss of blood.
10.51.07
FADE TO BLACK
10.51.10
MUSIC/GUN SHOTS
10.51.14
NARRATOR: Alongside the concerns over the violent activities of the skinheads, there is the question of whether they are acting free of influence.
10.51.22
MUSIC
10.51.28
RABBI: Obviously, in all these groups around the world, we have certain cases where some are hijacked and some of them are people playing with them because they have their own agenda.
10.51.37
ALI NASSOUR: Those skinheads are just a medium... Tools... They are used as zombies... They are acting on the agenda of other people....
10.51.48
DPNI MILITANTS GATHER: Glory to the Russia Nation.
10.51.51
NARRATOR: This is a gathering of one of those organizations accused of using the skinheads.
The DPNI, an anti-immigration movement, advocates driving non-Russians out the country...
They are worried that immigrants are put Slavic people are under threat of extinction...
10.52.08
ALEXANDR BELOV SHOUTING: A Russian Order for Russians!
10.52.15
DPNI SPOKESPERSON: Illegal immigration into Russia is a big problem. Many politicians believe economic problems are more serious.
But we can see that even in the third world countries, which also experience economic problems, they are not officially worried that their people are on the verge of extinction. In our county, we lose many people every year; especially Slavic Russians who die at a rate of one million every year. It is official figures....
10.53.00
CLAUDE: The last time I had a brawl with a Russian, it ended up in a police station.
I tried to reason him; I asked him, ‘why do you hate us?' and he answered, ‘you guys have to go back home and stay there, because we don't want a black supremacy here.'
They consider us as invaders, and they say that, if we settle here and give birth to many children, since the Russian demographic growth is negative, their race will disappear...
This is the kind of... the kind of reasoning which fuels resentment against us in the street.
10.53.45
BELOV SHOUTING
10.53.51
NARRATOR: This is Alexandr Belov, the national leader of the DPNI.
Since his movement emerged a few years ago, he has toured every major Russian city, lecturing to crowds on nationalism.
Here, he is at the scene of the November 2006 far-right mass demonstration, known as THE RUSSIAN MARCH.
Officially, it is a show of nationalism....
...But the Slogans chanted at the rally told another story...
10.54.23
CROWD NOISE
10.54.27
RABBI: Nationalism per se has nothing wrong... it's about someone who is pro his country... It is wrong if this nationalism is taken against someone else...
10.54.35
ANNA SHAROGRADSKYA: Nationalism has always been part of the mentality of the people of this country... What's wrong with nationalism where nation means diversity? But in our country, nationalism means mostly ‘Russia for Russians.'
10.54.51
RIOTING AT KONDOPOGA
10.54.53
NARRATOR: These scenes in September 2006 are an illustration of how far nationalism can lead.
10.54.59
AMBIANCE OF RIOTING
10.55.02
NARRATOR: The riots broke up in the industrial town of Kondopoga, following the murder of two ethnic Russians in a brawl involving Chechen migrants.
10.55.11
STONE THROWING
10.55.13
NARRATOR: As the violence continued for three days, top nationalists from Moscow including Alexandr moved into the city and pressed for all immigrants to be resettled.
10.55.23
BELOV PEP-TALKING
10.55.28
NARRATOR: In the end the DPNI failed to get what it demanded.
But there could be no worse publicity for immigrants in Russia than what sparked the Kondopoga riots.
10.55.39
CHEERING CROWD OF RIOTERS
10.55.40
SKINHEAD AIMS AND FIRES
10.55.43
DESIRE DEFOE: The youths espouse extremist and racist ideologies because they are misled to think that it's their only way out.
10.55.53
PROF DUBROVSKY: It is true, especially for the second half of the 90's. The activities of the ultra-radical organizations changed from publishing different books, from organizing different meetings to active works and actions on the streets.
10.56.15.07
MUSIC
10.56.15.11
ON SCREEN TEXT
Saint Petersburg
17 May 2007
10.56.18
BADARA SALL: Thanks for inviting Samba Lampsar's parents to this cultural celebration dedicated to our son's memory.
10.56.27
MUSIC
10.56.30
DESIRE: Xenophobia and racism in Russia must be tackled as terrorism.
10.56.36
BADARA: Intolerance is a shame for Mankind.
10.56.39
DESIRE: In Russia, the president must be as tough as on the issue as he was the day he addressed the issue of terrorism.
10.56.47
BADARA: No-one has a right to kill a 27-year-old innocent young man.
10.56.54
PROF DUBROVSKY: In my understanding, we have to purify, first of all, the language in the political spheres.
10.57.02
MUSIC
10.57.03
BADARA SALL: The acts taken by the St Petersburg University are acts of justice.
10.57.07
PROF DUBROVSKY: We have to prevent any king of hate ideas distributes sometimes in the high and middle schools in Russia.
10.57.15
MUSIC
10.57.16
BADARA SALL: Now, we can't wait to hear from the justice professionals, because justice is paramount in the fight against intolerance.
10.57.26
MUSIC
10.57.27
MOHAMMED: It's a pity! I think the skinheads, those youths of 18-19 years of age, if they are real patriots, they should go and do their studies so as to be able to play a role in the development of Russia.
10.57.40
BADARA SALL: So the justice system must act for nothing but justice's sake.
10.57.46
CHEERS AND APPLAUSE
10.57.50
ANNA SHAROGRADSKAYA: There will not be change for the better, unless these people learn from their parents, from their teachers, from the society itself that all people are created equal.
10.58.11
MUSIC
10.58.13
NARRATOR: Until that is understood, the question is, who is next to be slaughtered in Saint Petersburg because of the color... of his skin....
10.58.23
MUSIC
10.58.28
CREDITS
10.59.00
FADE OUT
CUT TO
VERTICAL PAN ON THE APOLLO NIGHT CLUB.
NARRATOR
The Apollo Night Club... the last place on Earth where Samba had been, body and soul...
Minutes later, he parted company with the living.
MICHEL: It was on a Thursday...
The sixth of April...
We were invited to the annual party of our department.
We went and did what we had to do until dawn...
In the morning, we left at around 5:45 AM.
As we walked away in a group of six, we suddenly heard a loud Boom...
BOOM
We were all startled...
When I looked back, I saw a man with a gun.
Then I said, ‘Guys, they fired.'
We all started off running.
We ran for a few seconds and then stopped to realize someone was missing...
When we looked back, we saw a body lying flat.
‘Who's missing,' we asked and inspected around us... We quickly found out... SAMBA!
Maybe, he didn't hear the report of the gun...
Because I didn't hear him scream... I heard nothing.
He was already dead...
CUT TO
RED ROSE BLURRING TO FOCUS.
NEWS READER: Sall's death was just the latest in a long series of incidents targeting Africans, Asians and non-Slavic people from inside Russia or other ex-Soviet Republics... in one of the worse cases there, a nine year-old girl from Tajikistan was beaten to death by skinheads while walking with her family two years ago...
DESIRE DEFOE (HEAD OF SAINT PETERSBURG AFRICAN UNION): I should say that it is actually very worrying...
For us, Africans alone, from November 2005 to May 2006, the murder toll amounted to seven: Five blacks and two Northern Africans...
SEVEN deaths, this is an average of ONE murder per month.
CUT TO
NEWS READER: An Indian student has been killed in the Russian city of St Petersburg, in what police say may have been a racially motivated attack.
INDIAN STUDENT ON A FRIEND'S MURDER (IN RUSSIAN): When the Police came, they started asking such questions, ‘what's your name?' ‘Are you drunk or not?'... They asked this kind of questions, rather than helping the man first of all! He is a human being after all!
FREEZED FRAME OF STUDENTS IS MOTIONED TO CLOSE-UP.
NARRATOR
Under the shock...
These Indians Students have just witnessed the last moments of their friend.
CUT TO
INDIAN STUDENT FREEZE FRAME RELEASED. TESTIMONY CONTINUED (IN RUSSIAN): The ambulance took 25 minutes to arrive. 25 MINUTES! It is unbelievable!
CUT TO
ANOTHER STUDENT'S TESTIMONY: The medics in the ambulance said to him, ‘Get up! Get up! You won't die! Get up!' As he got onboard the ambulance, his condition worsened. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't do anything.
CUT TO
SHOT OF STUDENTS' HOSTEL
NARRATOR
Outside this student hostel, the young men found their friend, Nitesh Kumar Singh, lying unconscious...
CUT TO
BLOOD ON THE GROUND
NARRATOR
He was bleeding from multiple stab gashes in the neck...
CUT TO
PUBLIC GARDEN WITH PASSERS-BY
NARRATOR
His attacker assaulted him in the neighbourhood, and he managed to reach THE ADDRESS where he lived. But it was too late.
The 27-year-old medical student was pronounced dead, shortly after being rushed to hospital...
PROFESSOR DUBROVSKY: In the different mass media, we can only read reports about the attacks against foreign citizens... It is a substantial part, but unfortunately, up to 80% of the attacks are out of their statistics... The real number of attacks is up to several thousands per week, I would say...
MICHEL: Look... In September, when Samba was still alive, a Congolese who lived with his girlfriend, at her request, went out in the night to buy her something... She waited for him to return in vain... When she went after him, she found him battered to death....
...On 24 December, we were here among friends... we decided we should be part of the Christmas celebration... So we were getting dressed to go to a nightclub, when Alphonse's cellular rang...
The news was that a Cameroonian was stabbed to death... ‘His body is lying here,' the caller insisted.
HE IS LYING HERE... RIGHT NOW.
It went like that until they killed Samba...
You should agree that it is just too much...
NARRATOR
On leaving the Apollo Nightclub, the students walked down this street...
They didn't know they had some sneaking company.
Hidden in this archway, the attacker had already cocked his rifle.
They only realised he was there when the weapon went off.
Also there was an unlikely witness: THIS CCTV CAMERA...
It caught the drama as it unfolded.
CUT TO CCTV PICTURES
On this grainy footage, the group is seen walking past the gunman's hideout...
The attacker darts out... produces his gun... and as he shoots, the group breaks running.
Dropping behind is Samba's lifeless body.
FADE TO
MOHAMMED: When I got to Krasna Kordesk, the street, I saw a group of people... it was still a bit dark... and there was a body in the middle of the road... I wanted... I ran to get close, wondering at the same time, ‘is he wounded? Have they called the medics?'
Some people replied, ‘medics for what? Samba is dead.'
Right there, I said he never did anybody wrong. It was such a guy who had no enemy... Everybody loved him. How could that happen!
They started then to tell me that they were in a group of six and that they were fired at, and... he was hit.
I wanted to know more... I asked for more explanation but no one seemed to care...
I saw a body lying there, dead. But... I couldn't take it that it was Samba... [SPEAKING WITH A STRESS] It shouldn't have happened.
CUT TO
BEREAVED VIETNAMESE STUDENTS: He was a good student... His mother is sick...
NARRATOR
Just like Mohammed, these Vietnamese students are under the pain of losing a friend.
BEREAVED STUDENTS CONTINUED: His mother is sick... His sister is getting married soon... His father died a year ago and today he has been killed.
NARRATOR
Vu Anh Tuan was rounded on an October day by a group of thugs near a metro station...
They beat h