Murder sparks Russia racism protests

ST PETERSBURG - Dozens of students have protested over rising racism in Russia after one of their classmates died following an attack they believe was racially motivated.

Epassak Rolan Franz, a 29-year-old from Congo, died on Wednesday in hospital after failing to recover from injuries he received when he was attacked on Friday.

The students gathered outside their university, holding photographs of their dead friend and showing a letter they had written to officials calling on them to pay more attention to the "rising hatred towards people of different skin colours".

Prosecutors said there was no evidence yet that the attack on Franz had been racist, but the protesters saw it as the latest in a string of racist murders in Russia's second city.

"We expressed our wish that the authorities and law enforcement bodies deal with this. It is not the first or the second case. Or are they going to wait for all the students to die?" Dezire Defo, a representative of the African Unity group, said.

In March, a UN Human Rights Commission investigator said racist attacks were on the rise in Russia and that a growing "skinhead movement" had been responsible for many incidents.

Several racist killings -- particularly the murders of two Tajik girls aged 5 and 9, both in St Petersburg -- have provoked widespread revulsion and triggered calls for the government to take action.

President Vladimir Putin has called for greater racial tolerance and accused extremists of trying to encourage hatred to hamper the Kremlin's drive against terrorism.

Attacks blamed on Chechen separatists have been accompanied by a rise in brutality against people clearly identified as non-Russian, much of it directed at darker-skinned Muslims from southern Russia and neighbouring ex-Soviet states.

- REUTERS