To prevent new racist violence in Russia, the police have arrested more than 1,500 people. About 500 participants in a right-wing demonstration have been taken in custody in Moscow on Saturday, and a further 800 persons as a preventive measure, police said. In the last days have nationalists repeatedly attacked Russian citizens or immigrants from the Caucasus and other countries.
The police had prevented "unauthorized meetings" in Moscow and Moscow region, told Yevgenij Gildejov, spokesman for the regional police, to the Russian news agency ITAR-TASS. One of the preventive measures was the arrest of 808 people, he said. Gildejow did not tell how many nationalists and how people with Caucasian origin have been taken in the actions.
About 500 nationalists gathered on Saturday near the TV station Ostankino. They shouted slogans like "Russia for Russians". Hundreds of policemen were deployed there. Almost all participants in the demonstration were arrested, said Moscow police spokesman Viktor Birjukow. Most protesters were underage youth.
Also in southwestern Russia, nationalists were arrested. Russian media reported from Volgograd 150 arrests and 100 from the industrial city of Samara. Already on Wednesday, approximately one thousand people were arrested for fear of clashes between ultra-nationalists and immigrants.
In recent days, young Russian ultra-nationalists repeatedly took part in violent clashes with young pepole of Caucasian origin. The clashes were triggered by the death of a Russian football fan which was killed in a fight with a group of people from the Caucasus.
Last Sunday a man from a former Soviet Republic was murdered - investigators suspect three young Russian extremists, among them a 14-year-old boy. He has already confessed to having stabbed the victim, the news agency Interfax reports, citing sources within the security apparatus. According to media reports, in Moscow and Moscow region another man from a former Soviet Republic was stabbed on Saturday and a Vietnames citizen was brutally beaten.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called the violence on Saturday on Russian television a "worrying sign" but stressed that the young ultra-nationalists were not a "lost generation." Putin said Thursday during a question program on television that authorities want to proceed "hard against any form of extremism". (Source: russland.RU - Internet Zeitung)
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