MOSCOW, November 12 (RIA Novosti) – A migrant rights campaigner and vocal critic of ultranationalism was shot in the back from a traumatic pistol as he attempted to enter his apartment in eastern Moscow on Monday night, a police spokesman said the next day.
Mais Kurbanov, a vice president of the Federation of Migrants of Russia, was rushed to a nearby hospital, but his injuries were not life-threatening, the police source told RIA Novosti.
Kurbanov had helped organize a March of Migrants to take place last week on Russia’s Unity Day, when thousands of nationalists rallied throughout the capital in protest of lax immigration laws.
Kurbanov’s march, however, was not sanctioned by city authorities and did not take place.
He was attacked on Monday by a group of four people, including a woman who shot him, the president of the Federation of Migrants of Russia, Madzhumder Mukhammad Amin, told RIA Novosti.
Amin said Kurbanov had frequently received threats because of his work.
Public discontent over rising numbers of foreign workers in Moscow has heated up in recent months, and thousands of migrants have been detained in police raids around the capital.
Conversely, police detained hundreds of local residents last month during massive anti-migrant protests in southern Moscow after a 25-year-old Russian was killed allegedly by an Azerbaijani migrant.
