A Tajik migrant worker in Moscow says he was badly beaten -- with several teeth shattered and part of his left ear bitten off -- by the husband of a woman he asked not to let her dog use a flowerbed as a bathroom.
Mahmadullo Davlatzoda, a street cleaner in a western district of the Russian capital, told RFE/RL on August 21 that the beatings followed an encounter with the woman on August 15 in which he politely suggested she walk her dog away from the flowers.
The woman returned the next day in a car with a man who got out and attacked him, breaking some of his teeth, Davlatzoda said by telephone from a hospital.
Davlatzoda later went to the police to report the attack, but agreed when they suggested he refrain from pressing charges.
He said the assailant came back the next day with a knife and told Davlatzoda that he would lose his job unless he apologized to his wife.
When he refused, the man again attacked him and bit of the upper part of his left ear, Davlatzoda told RFE/RL.
He said the pain was excruciating and he does not remember who helped him to get to the hospital.
Irina Biryukova, a lawyer with the legal aid NGO Obshchestvenny Verdikt (Public Verdict), told RFE/RL that her client was in a deep depression.
Biryukova also said that her organization has raised 10,000 rubles ($170) to treat Davlatzoda's crushed teeth.
Biryukova said that she helped Davlatzoda file a lawsuit against his alleged attacker, but that the man had filed a suit of his own against the migrant worker.
Hundreds of thousands of migrants from Central Asian countries work in Moscow and cities across Russia, and attacks motivated by ethnic prejudice are common.
