MOSCOW, August 20 (RIA Novosti) - Russian and foreign students gathered Wednesday in front of the US Embassy in Moscow, demanding punishment for those responsible for the police killing of a young African-American man in Ferguson, Missouri.
“We are outraged by this human rights violation. A second student has been murdered, the authorities are carrying out an aggressive policy against the protesters, with unnecessary use of force,” one of the rally participants, a French student named Stefan, told RIA Novosti.
Over 150 students knelt and raised their hands in front of the embassy, assuming the position the unarmed African-American teenager was supposedly in when he was fatally shot by a white police officer on August 9. The victim, 18-year-old Michael Brown, was unarmed and had no criminal record. The students also asked for US authorities to actively address human rights issues in their own country.
Brown’s murder has sparked major protests in the city of Ferguson, a predominantly African-American suburb of St. Louis. The demonstrations have turned violent on several occasions, with police repeatedly using tear gas and stun grenades against the protesters.
A second fatal shooting by St. Louis police has sparked even more tension in the area. Tuesday night, a 23-year-old African-American was killed by police officers just a few miles from the site of Brown’s shooting. The man tried to attack the officers with a knife, St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson wrote on Twitter.
