Russia Locks Down Foreign Students

Moscow’s top medical school is urging 2,000 foreign students to stay indoors for the next three days, citing an annual surge in attacks by skinheads around Aprll 20—Hitler’s birthday. The lockdown of non-native students is a preventative effort in response to a rise in xenophobic violence in Russia.

Last Monday a street cleaner from Tajikistan was stabbed 35 times by jackboot-wearing skinheads caught on video, and an Armenian businessman was murdered by a gang shouting racial epithets. Some sequestered students criticized the move as a failure by police; others stayed upbeat. "We are finally getting a rest and some sleep," says Malaysian Vishnu Ravee. (More xenophobia stories.)