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Ultra-nationalists, Putin supporters march  |
MOSCOW: Ultra-nationalists made fascist salutes while pro-Kremlin youth yelled praise for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin at varied events in Russia yesterday, marking a People’s Unity Day holiday.
In an unsanctioned demonstration that began in a central Moscow metro station, hundreds of far-right demonstrators chanted “Glory to Russia!” and “Glory to the Russian people!”
Many were seen raising their right arms in a Nazi-style salute.
About 500 marched down a central Moscow street before riot police intervened, beating the demonstrators with batons.
Between 200 and 400 people were arrested according to different official sources quoted by Russian news agencies, although another demonstration elsewhere in the city with over 1,000 far-right activists was permitted.
“I’m here because this is the only festival in which you can declare your Russianness. It’s necessary to do this so as not to lose one’s identity,” one demonstrator at the metro station gathering, Alexei Ogloblin, 18, told AFP.
“The threat is from illegal immigrants. The government profits from their cheap labour,” he said, clutching a red carnation.
In a reminder of ethnic tensions in Russia, local news agencies reported seven people injured in a fight in a public park overnight Monday involving ultra-nationalists and dark-skinned people from the Caucasus region, on Russia’s southern fringe.
Those involved wielded knives and knuckle-dusters, Interfax quoted a police source as saying.
The People’s Unity state holiday was first marked in 2005 on the anniversary of the 1612 expulsion of a Polish-Lithuanian military onslaught from Moscow.
It has attracted criticism from human rights campaigners and opposition groups as reflecting racial intolerance in today’s post-Soviet Russia.
In August the Moscow-based centre SOVA, which monitors racial attacks, said 85 people had been murdered and around 600 seriously injured last year in such attacks.
Another human rights group, the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights, was quoted by Interfax as saying 113 people had been killed in racist attacks so far this year.
In another city square a demonstration by flag-waving pro-Kremlin demonstrators was more patriotic in tone, not focused on race, and received full official support.
About 5,000 people attended the pro-Kremlin event, the RIA-Novosti news agency reported.
Activists from Putin’s United Russia party and its Young Guard wing chanted “We believe in Russia. We believe in ourselves!” and “Putin! Party! Young Guard!”
On November 1, the United Russia youth wing launched a campaign against illegal immigration entitled “Our money for our people”, which it said would include patrols of the country’s dockyards in search of illegal immigrants.
Russian news agency reports also said far-right marches had taken place in Chita, Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, Saint Petersburg and Vladivostok, with anti-fascist activists attempting to disrupt the Novosibirsk demonstration. – AFP
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