As readers will know, La Russophobe has an ongoing investigation as to the denial of asylum requests by the British Home Office to persons who claim they would be racially persecuted in Russia if returned there. The Home Office issued a prior report claiming that incidents of racial oppression in Russia are not significant. This rationale, of course, kills two birds with one stone. It gives the Home Office a convenient excuse for keeping "undesireables" out of the country, and it makes the Kremlin happy.

Now, the Home Office has issued a second such report, one which appears to have been drafted in response to the concerns raised on La Russophobe and elsewhere.

At the outset, the report shies away from any mention of the term "race," preferring instead to discuss "ethnic groups."

At paragraph 3.7.6 the report states that "during 2005 numerous racially motivated attacks took place" but it makes no attempt to quantify them. It admits that "police investigations were generally ineffective" (para. 3.7.7) but claims that "there were indications that authorities were increasingly willing to acknowledge racial motivations for such criminal acts" (para. 3.7.8).

In an outrageous fashion, the report then proceeds to give several examples of skinhead prosecutions by the "authorities" without first having given any specific examples of "racially motivated attacks" (see para. 3.7.8), even though those examples are widely available both in the media and from the U.S. government.

The report then admits that "there are limits on the effectiveness of any protection the authorities are willing or able to offer" and then even more outrageously, concludes that "this discrimination does not amount to persecution" (para. 3.7.12). In bizarre fashion, the report states: "In some cases the authorities are willing to offer sufficiency of protection although the effectiveness of this protection may be limited by individual police officers/government officials." In other words, many people will get no protection, and the rest will get protection which may not be worth anything at all. Most shockingly, the report states that "internal relocation" is a viable option when the local authorities are unwilling or unable to protect the victims.

In short, the British Home Office would appear to have gone quite berzerk. It is reaffirming a baseless position it previously took by offering even less evidence to support that position than it did before. It appears to be confirming an intention to arbitrarily refuse asylum which it is bound by international treaty to grant simply because it doesn't want too many dark-skinned foreigners cluttering up the country. And by no means should Britain be thought to be alone in this, since doubtless many other governments will adopt a similar attitude using this precedent.

La Russophobe dares to wonder just how many dark-skinned students Russians would have to brutally murder before the British government would recognize that Russia has race persecution. Apparently, several dozen per year is not enough. What would be? 1,000? 10,000? 100,000?