Immigration official fired over racist comments

The spokesman for Russia’s Federal Migration Service has been fired after issuing a racist rant to the BBC, ITAR-TASS reports.

Konstantin Poltoranin, the agency’s chief spokesman, told the BBC: "What is now at stake is the survival of the white race. We feel this in Russia. We want to make sure the mixing of blood happens in the right way here, and not the way it has happened in Western Europe where the results have not been good."

The BBC sought comment from Poltoranin for this great report on Russia’s only center for destitute asylum seekers, on the outskirts of the Urals city of Perm. They meet three men from the Ivory Coast and Rwanda who had come to Russia seeking political asylum, only to be shuttered away in the center, facing racist attacks from its administration as well as local residents. (Last year, I worked on this video, detailing a day in the life of an African immigrant in Russia.)

English speakers can read the whole story here. Russian speakers can watch the video below.

Poltoranin worked at the Federal Migration Service since 2005, which makes one wonder how many similar statements he made previously. Maybe he never made them to foreign press before. Russian bloggers pointed out that it was particularly, uh, uncouth that the story came out on April 20, Hitler’s birthday, a day when non-Slavic residents of Moscow are often advised to stay indoors because of skinheads’ proclivity to run rampant on the day.