Edited by Alexander Verkhovsky

Сontents:

Summary RADICAL NATIONALISM AND XENOPHOBIC AGGRESSION IN AUTUMN 2011 : Violence : Vandalism : Public activity of ultra-right groups : Nationalism in the political establishment

COUNTERACTION TO RADICAL NATIONALISM AND XENOPHOBIA : Counteraction by society : Criminal prosecution : (Penalty for violence : Punishments for propaganda)

Administrative measures : (Federal List of Extremist Materials : Deeming organizations extremist : Other administrative measures)

APPENDIX. STATISTICS OF CRIME AND PUNISHMENT (in word format).

Summary

This report was prepared during the height of the protest movement that followed the December 4, 2010 State Duma elections. The movement’s range and the character were completely unexpected, in particular to the political activists of various orientations who participated in it. Therefore, we are observing autumn’s events in the light of the new situation - as are radical nationalists, who in any case have been unable to play a significant role in the December events (we address this in greater depth in our yearly report). In order to understand why things managed to happen the way they did, we must look at what that took place right before the elections.

The autumn period [1] can be qualified as a time of unrealized hopes. Autumn 2011 seemed to begin with extremely favorable conditions for radical right groups. Firstly, as the country was gradually waking up to political life, radical nationalists seemed to have all the right preconditions for mobilizing their comrades. Secondly, the authorities became more tolerant to public actions. Thirdly, the radical right groups started to embrace ideas of cooperation with the so-called system parties (established parties, i.e. those registered by the Justice Ministry and allowed to run in parliamentary elections) and to emerge from their marginal position.

However, as events unfolded, it became evident that the presence of favorable conditions did not guarantee that they would be taken advantage of. Contacts with the system parties diminished – probably due to the prohibition of xenophobic rhetoric that came from the above before elections – and actions held by the ultra-right did not reach record numbers, gathering roughly the same amount of people as before. This includes the traditional Russian March, which expanded to new regions of Russia, but drew as many attendees in Moscow as it did the year before. However, it is worth noting that the ultra-right succeeded in putting on political weight by organizing the ‘Stop Feeding the Caucasus!’ rally that drew broad attention and was widely discussed. They also managed to bring well-known anti-corruption blogger and Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny to two of their public events (though his supporters did not come).

Although the nationalists’ views are much more popular in society than liberal views, the former remained unable to leave its marginal position; this is due to their bad reputation with the politically active part of society, and a lack of good organization and leaders that can be respected by the majority of the movement.

Despite expectations and past experience, there was no outburst of violence this autumn, and possibly due to pre-election activity, the level of violence remained the same as in summer. It is also linked to the improvement of criminal prosecution for racist violent crimes.

Unfortunately, we cannot report similar improvements regarding prosecution for xenophobic propaganda. The number of sentences has increased as people are punished for minor charges that, strictly speaking, should not be subject to criminal prosecution.

The Federal List of Extremist Organizations has been supplemented actively, reaching more than 1,000 items, though it has long been practically unusable. Materials are added to it without output or with mistakes, and entries and positions often duplicate each other.

It is telling that the Ministry of Justice proposed a bill planning to discharge from itself the control and registration functions of maintaining the Federal List and of issuing warnings to social organizations on the inadmissibility of extremist activity. However, this initiative did not gain government support.

Radical nationalism and xenophobic aggression in autumn 2011

Violence

In autumn 2011, Sova center registered at least 28 individual victims of racist and neo-Nazi motivated violence. Three people were killed, and 25 more injured. However, we did not see the surge in violence that we expected; the data are quite similar to those of summer 2011 (23 victims). In autumn 2010, we registered 77 victims, with 10 of them killed.[2]

In all, 143 people suffered during the 11 months of 2011, and 18 of them were killed. Apart from that, six persons received serious death threats. During all of 2010, 439 people suffered and 43 of them were killed; five persons received death threats. We must reiterate that our statistics are far from complete, we become aware of attacks with a big delay – and see an increase of roughly twenty percent per year. From year to year, information on racist attacks becomes less and less accessible. In spite of concerns over ‘interethnic conflicts’ declared in the media, reports on such attacks appear more and more rarely, with media continuing to report on the incidents in a way that leaves their character is unclear. As a result, it is often not possible to distinguish an everyday attack from a racist one. But even accounting for these factors, it is indisputable that the number of racist attacks has decreased.

We remind readers that we show attack data without considering those suffered in the republics of the North Caucasus or in mass brawls. During the autumn months, we encountered reports on such brawls twice, and in both cases they took place in Stavropol Krai, itself in the North Caucasus (in September, in the Divnoe village, and in October, in Suvorovskaya stanitsa). In both cases, the pretext for conflict was a participant’s T-shirt, carrying the inscription ‘I am Russian.’ In the first case, the clash took place between representatives of a Greek community and Cossacks, and in the other, between Caucasians and local inhabitants. Both incidents reflect the tense atmosphere in the territory, and precipitated a storm of comments on right radical blogs.

During the autumn months, attacks were registered in 13 regions of the country: Moscow and the Moscow region, St. Petersburg; the Amur, Arkhangelsk, Chelyabinsk, Kaluga, Novosibirsk, Rostov and Tomsk regions; the Primorye and Stavropol krais, and the Republic of Buryatia.

The attack victims were generally representatives of informal youth groups (eight persons injured), people of unspecified ‘non-Slavic origin’ (six injured), members of religious groups (five injured), people with dark skin (three injured, one killed), people from Central Asia (one killed, one injured), people from the Caucasus (two injured), and people from other Asian countries (one injured)[3].

According to these data, people from Central Asia have ceased to be the main object of ultra-right attacks. However, we hesitate to make such a statement because it is known that among six people of ‘non-Slavic origin,’ more than half were victims of attacks committed by participants of the Russian March. We cannot identify these victims with confidence, but can note that people visiting ultra-right blogs and forums identify people of ‘Asian origin,’ which could indicate people from Central Asia.

The number of attacks against representatives of youth subcultures and leftist organizations has remained high and stable in our statistics during the last two years. As it can be seen from the available data, this season they also became the main targets of the ultra-right. First among them are musicians and attendants of antifascist concerts; secondly, leftist social and political activists (members of the SibAntiCap 2011 march in Tomsk); thirdly, ecology activists (defenders of the Chelyabinsk city pine forest). In spite of varying ideological orientations, all these groups often consist of anarchists and representatives of leftist movements.

The tension in the ‘ultra-left — ultra-right — police’ triangle continues to grow. It can be seen in particular in the fact that representatives of leftist organizations who suffer attack blame the police for their involvement. For instance, according to the participants of a march against capitalism in Tomsk, the neo-Nazi group that attacked them was allegedly linked to a United Russia deputy in the city Duma. Members of leftist organizations in Chelyabinsk who suffered attack also wrote of a possible link between the attackers and police.

As we mentioned above, the statistics of autumn attacks were, as usual, supplemented following the Russian March of November 4. We are aware of at least two attacks in the Moscow Metro and one in the St. Petersburg Metro. We do not consider clashes between Moscow ‘marchers’ and passers-by that expressed their disagreement to be an appropriate way of celebrating a state holiday.

In this season we continued to see racism among football fans. In particular, fans of FC Kuban wrote ‘Bananas don’t grow here! 88’ on the asphalt near a stadium in Krasnodar before a match between Kuban and Anzhi Makhachkala. They also held a banner with the imperial black-yellow-white tricolor and a xenophobic inscription. A player from Cameroon, Samuel Eto’o, joined Anzhi in summer, and the number 88 is a traditional neo-Nazi symbol.

Provocative xenophobic videos are regularly published on the radical right wing of the Web. The one that caused biggest public resonance appeared on 27 November, and purported to show a person from the Caucasus slitting the throat of a Russian woman. The video seems to be staged in a manner similarly to those of the Format 18 studio, though there are various theories regarding who stands behind the video. It could be a provocation appealing to anti-Caucasus and anti-Islamic attitudes in society, made according to instructions popular in the beginning of 2009 [4]. However it could just as well have been made by people from the Caucasus. There was even a theory that this was a way to bind a new member of a ‘Caucasian gang’ with blood. The video was actively spread on the Web and caused the expected negative reaction.

Vandalism

During autumn 2011, Sova registered at least 23 acts of vandalism, in 12 regions of the country, that were motivated by hate or radical nationalist ideology. Almost the same number was registered in summer 2011 (22 acts). Compared to autumn 2010, the activity of vandals has reduced a bit (no fewer than 30 acts in autumn 2010). In all, from the beginning of 2011, at least 76 acts of vandalism were committed in 32 regions of the country.

The biggest plurality of acts was committed against Orthodox and Jewish targets (five cases each). Almost the same amount was committed against Protestant and Muslim objects (four cases each). We should note that the profanation of Muslim tombs in Nizhny Novgorod we reported earlier did not cease. We were informed of two such cases.[5] The buildings of new religious movements also suffered (three cases), as well as monuments with ideological significance (two cases). It is noteworthy that apart from a monument to Lenin (such monuments are regularly vandalized), a monument to general Alexei Ermolov (conqueror of the Caucasus) in Stavropol Krai was damaged with a xenophobic inscription. Apart from this, we registered at least seven graffiti actions in Moscow, St. Petersburg, the Jewish Autonomous Region, and the republics of Tatarstan and Mari El that drew public attention.

The activity of vandals usually amounts to nothing more than neo-Nazi graffiti (15 cases).[6] However, truly dangerous acts were committed as well, such as explosions and arsons. Thus, an attempt to set fire to a Jehovah’s Witnesses building was committed in Yelets, an Orthodox church faced an arson attempt in Moscow, a building of Pentecostals was set ablaze in Nizhnevartovsk, and in Kaliningrad someone attempted to blow up a mosque.

Public activity of ultra-right groups

Ultra-right groups started the autumn period with a certain disappointment with the fact that the contacts with so-called system parties (i.e. those registered by the Justice Ministry and allowed to run in parliamentary elections), which they were so actively establishing in spring and summer, bore no real fruit. The Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) did not include any member of the Russian Committee established under the party’s auspices in summer, in its election slates. The Right Cause (Pravoe delo) (which had also flirted with nationalists) virtually evaporated from the race after its leader Mikhail Prokhorov left his post. Just Russia (Spravedlivaya Rossia) lost the leader of OSA (the youth movement of adherents to the party) and member of the nationalist organization People’s Council (NS, Narodnyi sobor) Nikita Slepnev [7].

However, this situation did not spoil a generally positive mood. In the beginning of autumn, the ultra-right was confident that its ideology was in high demand in society, which they saw as confirmed by the fact that system parties had made contact with them. The nationalists banked on public actions for the autumn pre-election period, and organizers expected them to break all previous records in number of attendees. In the first place, such numbers should have been secured by the grade of right radical protest activity that grew as the elections drew closer. Just as before, the anti-government mood was enflamed by various reports on the allegedly inappropriate prosecution of adherents to ultra-right ideology, on crimes committed by functionaries and officials of law enforcement agencies, etc. The ultra-right did not avoid using its old and time-tested methods of mobilization, exploiting not anti-government, sentiment, but xenophobic moods first and foremost.

As we have noted so many times before, the method used most often is a publicity campaign featuring violent incidents that pit ethnic Russians against ethnic ‘strangers.’. In spite of all efforts no such incident became a public relations bomb in autumn, although the constant flickering of such information undoubtedly helped the ultra-right community to remain active.

The most explosive event could be the murder of FC CSKA fan Andrei Uryupin in a brawl in Podolsk with a person from Dagestan, or the murder of FC Zenit fan Roman ‘Robin’ Lovchikov in a brawl in St. Petersburg with a person from Uzbekistan. In both cases, the ultra-right obviously expected the scenario of the Manezhnaya Square riots in Moscow in December 2010 to repeat, but no such thing happened.

The rally in memory of Uryupin was set for October 8 and was to be held on Manezhnaya Square. At most 150 people showed up, and nearly 100 of them were detained on their way there.

The rally in memory of Lovchikov, organized by the Russians (Russkie) movement that took place on October 27 in St. Petersburg drew even fewer people despite rather long preparations and widespread announcements. No more than 20 people gathered near Gostiny Dvor, and the Russians' action was ignored by groups of football fans.

Apart from the publicity of violent incidents, the Russians association attempted to mobilize its adherents with the help of another anti-Islamic campaign. In September, an announcement was published on the website of the banned Movement against Illegal Immigration (DPNI, Dvizhenie protiv nelegal’noi immigratsii), calling on adherents to petition Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin demanding the restriction of the celebration of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha on 6-7 November. [8]

The authors attempted to spark the anger of their readers by stressing that the locations especially organized for Muslim holidays remain empty, while the believers instead block roads in Central Moscow near the Prospekt Mira Metro station. The text also included statements ‘in defense of human rights,’ appealing to the hurt feelings of non-Muslims and the restricted freedom of movement some citizens suffered. The initiative did not receive serious support, much like the initiative a year before, when the ultra-right attempted to score political points before the Russian March by protesting the construction of mosques.

However, the highest stakes came with autumn’s major traditional actions, i.e. the one in memory of victims of ‘ethnic criminals,’ and the Russian March.

The preparation of these two events during a highly political period sharpened the competition between ultra-right organizations, reviving a conflict between the two most notable of them, the Russians (a coalition of the former DPNI, Slavic Union (SS, Slavyanskii soyuz), National Socialist Initiative (NSI, Natsional-sotsialisticheskaya initsiativa), and several other organizations), and the Russian Social Movement (ROD, Russkoe obshchestvennoe dvizhenie). We note that in winter, the not-yet-banned DPNI and ROD expressed disagreement over which of them would lead the unification process in the radical right community. In spring, when ROD did not join the Russians coalition, it became clear that a competing project would soon appear made up of followers of ROD’s Konstantin Krylov. The transformation of ROD into the association that followed did not lead to any crucial changes in the alignment of forces, though in autumn, it made a new effort to establish a big organization around itself with a wide base of adherents.

In the beginning of September, information appeared about the establishment of a new coalition of ultra-right organizations, the Russian Platform (Russkaya platforma), that comprised the ROD and the Russian Civil Union (RGS, Russkii grazhdanskii soyuz) led by Anton Susov, and a bit later the Moscow Defense League (Liga oborony Moskvy) led by Daniil Konstantinov, Stanislav Vorobyev’s Russian Imperial Movement (RID, Russkoe imperskoe dvizhenie), and several minor organizations. The project’s goal was to form an ultra-right ‘civic movement’ that could influence the agenda through mass actions.

The list of issues marked as significant by the Russian Platform is not new. Russia should be recognized as a national state of the Russian people, the subsidy of the Caucasian regions should be cancelled (‘Stop feeding Caucasus!’), article 282 of the Criminal Code – which punishes for inciting hatred – should be cancelled, firearms should be legalized, etc. [9] The organization’s attempts at pleasing everyone are clear through their choice only slogans that are sure to be supported by a large number of adherents and would not cause argument and controversy. The originators also clearly expected football fans to join their actions, and it was especially for the football fans that the list included a special item demanding the cancellation of ‘all open and secret preferences for Caucasian football clubs.’

The Russian Platform’s first action was the all-Russian campaign ‘Stop Feeding the Caucasus!’ (de facto started by the ROD and RGS in spring). The organizers proposed holding numerous rallies under that slogan throughout the country, attracting not only active adherents to nationalist ideology but also those sharing anti-Caucasian views although they are not consistent nationalists.

Thus, the first conflict between the Russians and the Russian Platform took place because of the Moscow action ‘In Memory of the Victims of Ethnic Criminals,’ when the organizations comprising the Russian Platform decided to hold their own event in Moscow under their own campaign. They proposed that anyone who showed up could take part in the rally ‘Stop Feeding the Caucasus!’ including organizations within the Russians coalition. The latter refused, and as a result, on October 1 two ultra-right actions took place in Moscow.

The rally organized by the Russians took place near the Chistye Prudy Metro station, close to the spot where the FC Spartak fan Yury Volkov had been killed. According to various estimates, between 150 and 200 people took part in the rally. The Russians were represented by Aleksandr Belov, Georgy Borovikov, Dmitry Demushkin and Vladimir Ermolaev; the first three delivered speeches before the audience, and Belov even read a prayer. Members of the action held portraits of the ‘victims of ethnic criminals’ and laid flowers to the spot where Volkov was killed. The Russians were unable to coordinate the rally with the Moscow authorities, so the action was held in the form of a citizens’ gathering, which the police did not disturb.

After the rally, some participants attacked activists who gathered to hold the March of Equality against the discrimination of women and LGBT people and against all forms of xenophobia and discrimination, which also took place near Chistye Prudy. Nationalists threatened the liberals and threw tomatoes at them. The nationalists also tried to get an obscene chant going. One of the protesters shot members of the rally with a paintball gun, and later, right radicals followed members of the action to the Metro and attacked them. It is reported that a brawl took place, and that gas had been dispersed. The clash was interrupted by the police, who detained about 40 persons - both nationalists and participants of the March of Equality.

The Russian Platform rally was coordinated with the approval of Moscow authorities. The event took place as a march on the Taras Shevchenko embankment and according to various estimates between 300 and 500 people attended, including football fans. The leader of the Moscow Defense League, Daniil Konstantinov, read out loud a list of people killed by ‘ethnic murderers’ (from football fan Yegor Sviridov to former colonel Yury Budanov). Attendants then marched from the Vystavochnaya Metro station to the Ukraina hotel, where they held a rally demanding a visa regime between the republics of the Northern Caucasus and the rest of Russia. After the action was over, about 100 attendants aged 14 to 20, including football fans, gathered in a column without the participation of the organizers, and went along Kutuzovsky Avenue lighting flares and shouting the slogans ‘Russia for the Russians, Moscow for the Muscovites!’, ‘Cops are the shame of Russia!’, and ‘Fuck the Caucasus!’ Police began detaining the nationalists as they approached the House of Government. About 30 people were detained, while the rest scattered.

After October 1, the leaders of competing organizations began accusing each other of dividing the movement. Firstly, the Russians decided that the ROD had used someone else’s idea for the publicity of the ‘Stop Feeding the Caucasus’ campaign; the idea of an action ‘against ethnic criminals’ was proposed by the DPNI in 2009. Secondly, the idea of the campaign itself was criticized because it could have led to the separation of the Caucasus region from Russia, whereas the Russians allegedly stood for Russia’s territorial integrity. Thirdly, the Russians were angered by the location the ROD chose to hold its action. Demushkin called Taras Shevchenko ‘an enclosure for opposition,’ and blamed the ROD of ‘bowing and scraping before officials,’ of having agreed to ‘walk in the woods’ in order to ‘tell themselves loudly how bad the ethnic criminals are, outcrying the wind from the river, being hidden from all citizens by a long earth mound and kilometers of garages and industrial zones. [10]’

The ROD, for its part, declared that the Russians were simply ‘drawing attention to themselves’ by having refused to take part in the action. Moreover, the Russians were accused of intending to provoke nationalist activists to get into unreasonable clashes with the police and to ultimately get themselves arrested, because the action on the embankment was coordinated with the authorities while that of the Russians was not.

The RGS also took part in the conflict. On his blog, Anton Susov criticized Demushkin’s statement on the murder of Ivan Agafonov. [11] Susov was indignant at the fact that after having declared that the murder had been of an ‘everyday’ character, Demushkin applied to hold an action in memory of the ‘victims of ethnic criminals.’ In a discussion in the comments to Demushkin’s post, Susov accused the leaders of the Russians coalition of considering abandoning the slogan ‘Stop Feeding the Caucasus!’ after having allegedly given a promise to the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov during their a summer visit to the republic.

Actions in memory of the victims of ‘ethnic criminals’ took place not only in Moscow but also in other cities: Kazan, Novosibirsk, St. Petersburg, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Syktyvkar, and Tomsk. Only in St. Petersburg did the action turn out to be relatively noticeable, drawing about 80 people, whereas in other cities the number of participants did not exceed 20. Although neither Moscow action drew masses, that of the Russian Platform became well known, just as the organizers expected.

The conflict did not fade away and was soon flaring up around the main autumn event, the Russian March. Thus, in the beginning of October, ROD activist Matvei Tszen wrote in his blog on Livejournal.com, “Two organizing centers for the 2011 Russian March have formed. One around the Russians movement, the other around the national democrats. The difference between them is that the Russians stand sharply against the slogan ‘Stop Feeding the Caucasus!’ The national democrats, for their part, consider this as one of the central political slogans of the Russian nationalists and its absence would seem very strange indeed. Ramzan Kadyrov’s opinion on the subject is not important. Neither side wants to split, although the Russians have de facto started preparing for the Russian March separately.[12]”.

Many of those who read the post thought its author was implying that the leaders of the Russians movement had ‘sold themselves to Kadyrov,’ explaining why they chose not to use the slogan. In response, Russians activist Sofya Budnikova (ex-DPNI-Kursk) wrote a post on her blog, entitled ‘Assholes or Provocateurs?’ where she stated that the reason of the renunciation of the slogan ‘Stop Feeding the Caucasus!’ was that in the case of its use, the Russian March would surely be banned - adding that she could not believe the ROD and the RGS could not understand that.[13]

It would have been anyone’s guess who would have finally taken part in the Russian March if the organizations moved from squabbles to open confrontation. However, this did not happen. The Russian Platform denounced confrontation, probably due to the low number of participants at the countrywide action ‘Stop Feeding the Caucasus!’ on October 22.

In Moscow, the action took place on Bolotnaya Square and gathered about 300 people. The organizers succeeded in attracting blogger Alexei Navalny, which they considered one of their main achievements. Navalny spoke at the rally together with the leaders of organizations that had joined the Russian Platform, such as Konstantin Krylov, Vladimir Tor, Anton Susov and Daniil Konstantinov. The leader of Democratic Choice (Demokraticheskii vybor, formerly part of the PARNAS party (Party of People’s Freedom, Partiya narodnoi svobody)) Vladimir Milov also joined the action. The rally’s list of speakers shows that that the organizers expected not only ultra-right activists to attend, but also people with soft nationalist views. But in spite of the wide publicity campaign and the participation of Navalny and Milov, the action was not attended by significantly more people than the organizers attracted the first one, in spring, before the slogan ‘Stop Feeding the Caucasus!’ was decided a base for the all-Russian campaign. The organizers’ efforts to advertise the new initiative evidently did not deliver the desired result.

In addition to Moscow, actions took place in St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk and Pskov, and none of them gathered more than 100 people. We should note that in Novosibirsk, the main slogan of the action mutated into ‘Stop Feeding Moscow!’ so the action in the city can be attributed to the whole campaign by stretching a point only.

However, one cannot state certainly that the campaign failed. Although the rallies did not gather many attendees, the ultra-right and their action succeeded in becoming a significant element of the agenda, perhaps for the first time since the event on Manezhnaya Square. The slogan was discussed rather thoroughly and was even mentioned during Vladimir Putin’s live call-in show in December.

The low number of attendees of the ‘Stop Feeding the Caucasus!’ action was not the only reason the ROD finally agreed to take part in the Russian March. The other incentive that prompted them to step aside from confrontation was Navalny’s decision to speak at the March, and we should note that since 2010, the ROD’s leadership honed in on Navalny as a possible leader of the ultra-right movement, hoping to attract him to a joint project by any means possible. And, as we can see from the popular blogger’s participation in two radical right-wing actions, they succeeded. However, it became clear at the same time that many of Navalny’s adherents are far from being inclined to attend nationalist events together with him.

According to tradition, the Russian March took place in many Russian cities on November 4.

The Russians, the Russian Platflorm (with Navalny in its column), the Union of Orthodox Gonfalon Carriers (SPKh, Soyuz pravoslavnykh khorugvenostsev), the Russian Image (Russkii obraz), People's Council, Orel Front (Orlovskii Front) (a neo-Pagan group from Orel supposedly sharing ideas promoted by the Northern Brotherhood (Severnoe bratstvo)), the Varyag movement, the Russian Sun organization (Russkoe solntse) and, of course, many more or less organized autonomous neo-Nazi groups.

The march finished with a rally, as usual. Among the speakers were Vladimir Tor (who read the rhyming slogan ‘Kremlin, listen to our order, stop feeding the Caucasus!’) and Alla Gorbunova (ROD), Ivan Mironov (charged and acquitted of complicity in the attempted murder of then head of the electric power monopoly RAO UES Anatoly Chubais), Thibault de Chassey, leader of the French Renovation (Renouveau franc,ais) who called on a restriction of immigrants to Russia using France as an example, Navalny, Belov, Konstantinov (all the three spoke against the United Russia party, and Belov summoned people to take to the streets after the elections), Georgy Borovikov (Russians, Russian Liberation Memory Front (Russkii front osvobozhdeniya (RFO) ‘Pamyat’’ ) who said the time had come to seize power and establish elite militarized brigades and units to impose a Russian order. Dmitry Demushkin read the resolution of the rally, which finished with the words ‘Authorities, go away!’

The St. Petersburg action took place at South Maritime Park and gathered about 500 people. The participants stood under imperial flags, state flags of the Russian Federation, banners of the Slavic Union and the NSI. The rally was led by Dmitry Sukhorukov (St. Petersburg DPNI department) and Nikolai Bondarik (RID), and finished with a performance by the leader of the Kolovrat band Denis Gerasimov. [14] After the action was over, columns of about 200 to 250 young people marched from the park to the Leninsky Prospekt Metro station, chanting xenophobic slogans. In the Metro, the participants of the march insulted people of 'non-Slavic origin.' Police were noticeably absent both in the carriages and at the stations. As the right radical blogs report, ‘there were two white carriages,’[15] with one person severely beaten.

It can be noted that the march’s territory has widened. It was held in at least 35 cities including Pyatigorsk, Rybinsk, Novomoskovsk, Smolensk, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Vologda and Surgut, where such actions had never been held before. In some cases, the organizers succeeded in gathering many times more people than in previous years. However, the main actions, in Moscow and St. Petersburg, turned out to be clearly less crowded than organizers had expected. For instance, in Moscow 20,000 or even 25,000 people were expected to come, whereas in reality, not more than 6,000 people gathered in Lyublino (with 5,500 a year before in the same place). A record was set, but it is hard to consider it much of a success in ‘the year after Manezhnaya.’

Autonomous right radicals who also seemed to have expected the bigger amount of participants spoke again on the necessity ‘to act, not to march.’ On the contrary, the year before, when it became possible to gather far more people than had been expected, it was a cause for celebration in the community and precipitated wide speculation on the rising ‘national self-consciousness.’

After all, we should note that the ROD was not the only organization to have a conflict with the Russians before the Russian March. In the beginning of September, the Front of National Unity ‘Imperial Union’ (Front natsional’nogo edinstva ‘Imperskii soyuz’) led by Sergei Semenov published a statement calling on its adherents and activists to not take part in the Russian March on November 4 organized by the Russians in order to avoid becoming ‘bargaining chips’ for those ready to collude with authorities. The Youth Imperial Union established an alternative initiative group for the preparation of the Russian March, which was consequently joined by the Russian Party of the National Great Power (Natsional’no-derzhavnaya partiya Rossii),the Union of People’s Socialists (Soyuz narodnykh natsionalistov), the Council of Rus (Russovet), the all-Russian religious union ‘Russian People’s Faith’ (Vserossiiskii religiozny soyuz ‘Russkaya narodnaya vera’), the Russian DPNI. As a result, on November 4 an Imperial March with about 200 participants took place before the main Russian March.

We are able to note that the ultra-right was unable to take advantage of a favorable situation, concerning the authorities’ policy towards opposition, and more importantly, the pre-election mobilization of society as a whole and time-tested adherents to their ideology in particular. It happened partly because the legal organizations that could at least coordinate the activity of separate members of the movement were in zugzwang. On one hand, they are seen as too loyal and ‘systemic’ for the autonomous ultra-right. On the other hand, they are too radical and ‘extra-systemic’ for the xenophobic majority of the Russian population. And they are not able to make a decisive choice whether they are on one side or on the other.

Nationalism

in the political establishment

In autumn, president Dmitry Medvedev repeatedly demanded that parties withdraw xenophobic rhetoric from their election campaigns. [16] According to the campaigns, the system parties followed the recommendation - with the partial (and traditional) exception of the LDPR. The ‘Russian issue,’ migration and the Caucasus – which seemed to be the inevitable mainstream topics for the election campaign in the beginning of the year – were mentioned only rarely and implicitly during the campaign itself.

United Russia continued its cooperation with the moderate nationalist Congress of Russian Communities (KRO, Kongress russkikh obshchin) and its former leader Dmitry Rogozin. In the beginning of September, Rogozin attended the KRO convention where he summoned the organization to support United Russia and Vladimir Putin personally. Later, the KRO and United Russia made an arrangement to sign a bilateral agreement (which was not realized). During his brief return to big politics, Rogozin managed to provoke a scandal with his anti-Islamic statements concerning the Eid al-Adha celebration [17] and by hold a meeting with representatives of youth organizations in the building of the presidential administration office, which was attended by a leader of the ultra-right Russian Image.

Besides, regardless of the authorities’ repeatedly voiced aspirations of fighting xenophobia and migrantophobia, a so-called anti-Tajik campaign was held in autumn. In response to the convictions of Russian and Estonian pilots in Tajikistan (which was evidently inappropriate), the Federal Migration Service started to actively detain and demonstratively deport migrants who had come from that country. The issue of the pilots’ liberation was settled on the presidential level, so the target audience of the deportation campaign could hardly have been the Tajik authorities; more probably it was Russian citizens. It came as no surprise that society saw this campaign as xenophobic. Further, it became a base for cooperation between the authorities and the ultra-right organizations that treated it as a positive development. For instance, in November the Moscow Defense League and Bright Russia (Svetlaya Russia), led by Igor Mangushev, declared that they had taken part in anti-Tajik raids in the Presnya region of Moscow together with police officers. We consider such joint raids to be inadmissible under the law.

Apart from this, anti-migrant sentiment was stirred up once more in autumn by newly-appointed Moscow prosecutor Sergei Kudeneev’s claim that every fifth murder, every second sexual assault, every third robbery, and every fifth theft in the capital was committed by a foreigner. [18]

Apparently, the calls made by President Dmitry Medvedev were the reason why the contacts between system parties and ultra-right organizations diminished in autumn. However, some parties still could not resist the urge to use the xenophobic discourse in their election campaigns.

In this regard, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) was the most active. For instance, in October, the party started to promote nationalist Russian Concord (Russkii lad), which was established by the party in January but is virtually non-functional, led by KPRF Duma deputy Vladimir Nikitin, chairman of the Subcommittee on Migration Politics within the Committee on CIS affairs and relations with compatriots. It was reported that ‘it is proposed to establish the Russian Concord movement as a mass social community of people, Russian by spirit and world view, who have united in order to create a perfect society in Russia on the grounds of a distinctive civilization project.[19]’ None of the well-known members of the ultra-right movement was invited to join the organization. Perhaps it was established only in order to designate the party’s position concerning the ‘Russian issue.’ In October, the KPRF appeared to be at the center of a scandal provoked by statements made by Samara KPRF activist Sergei Igumenov on his blog. While Igumenov was a deputy candidate for the Samara regional Duma, he published an anti-Semitic post in his blog under the title ‘Dirty Jews suck, foreigners are mourning — Sergei Igumenov is registered as people’s candidate’[20]. Besides, on November 25 another KPRF activist, Pavel Grudinin, was removed from the ballot to the Moscow Regional Duma. The reason was Grudinin’s interview to Russian Reporter, where he made several clearly discriminative statements. In particular, the candidate summoned the audience not to sell apartments to migrants from Southern republics.[21]

LDPR activists have also not done without nationalist statements. For instance, in the beginning of December, a scandal burst out due to anti-Semitic statements by party deputy Andrei Tkachenko made at a round table during a free radio broadcast for all the parties [22]. It is reported that the activist had expressed nationalist views even before the beginning of the program, and had insulted several radio anchorpersons by inquiring about their ‘ethnic roots.’ Party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky also made soft nationalist statements, for instance, his words on the interethnic situation in the Komi Republic caused the governor to declare Zhirinovsky persona non grata in the region until he formally apologizes. We should note that in Novosibirsk, not only members of ultra-right organizations but also Just Russia Duma deputy Ilya Ponomarev (who is well-known for his leftist political views), Novosibirsk Right Cause head Sergei Dyachkov, and the leader of the local department of the Patriots of Russia Alexander Mukharytsin, spoke at the Russian March.

However, when comparing with the spring and summer situations, when parties were only developing their election strategy, in autumn the grade of xenophobia in election campaigns dropped and nationalist rhetoric was almost fully supplanted by general opposition rhetoric.

Counteraction

to radical nationalism and xenophobia

Counteraction by society

In autumn, several traditional public events were held against racism and xenophobia.

From November 9 to 16, the annual International Week of Tolerance was held under the slogan ‘Die Kristallnacht never again!’[23] This year, within the framework of the Action Week, events took place in several Russian cities: Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan, Kostomuksha, Murmansk, Nizhny Novgorod, Petrozavodsk, Rostov-on-Don, Samara, Saratov, Ulyanovsk and Voronezh.

On November 13 in St. Petersburg, a traditional picket in memory of the musician and anti-fascist Timur Kacharava took place for the fifth time on Ligovsky Avenue; Kacharava had been killed on that date by a neo-Nazi. The action gathered several dozen people. Apart from that, the day before, St. Petersburg anti-fascists held a ceremony to symbolically rename Kolokolnaya Street to Timur Kacharava Street by sticking up a new street sign with the respective inscription.

It is worth noting one more annual event, the March Against Hatred held in St. Petersburg since 2004 after the murder of scientist Nikolai Girenko. This year, it was the regional department of United Russia that organized the action. As such, human rights activists decided against holding the event in order not to ‘politicize’ it.

Criminal

prosecution

Penalty for violence

In autumn 2011, courts displayed a diminished range of criminal prosecution for racist violence accounting for the hate motive, compared to previous seasons. During this period, at least 10 sentences were passed in nine regions, with 25 people convicted. This is less than during summer 2011, when 15 sentences convicted 64 people. (In spring, there were 18 sentences against 76 persons.) In all, from the beginning of 2011, 50 sentences were issued in 29 regions against 174 people.

The following Criminal Case articles were used to qualify violent crimes as racist: Article 105 Part 2 Item ‘k,’ national hate motivated murder committed by a group of people; Article 116 Part 2 Item ‘b,’ national hate motivated beating; Article 115 Part 2 Item ‘b,’ hate motivated causing minor harm to health; Article 213 Part 1 items ‘a’ and ‘b,’ hate motivated hooliganism.[24] Only in one sentence during the period from September to November, was Article 282, incitement of national hate, used. In the passing of this sentence, for the attack against students with russophobic slogans,[25] the Resolution of the Supreme Court Plenum #11 ‘On Court Practice in Extremist Criminal Cases’ issued on June 28, 2011 was taken into account [26] , according to which the use of Article 282 for violent crimes is approved if they are aimed at inciting a third person to hatred, for instance, by means of an ideologically motivated, demonstrative attack in public.

• The punishments were allocated as follows:
• five persons were released from punishment following expiry of a statute of limitations;
• five persons received suspended sentences without additional sanctions;
• one person was sentenced to correctional labor;
• one person was sentenced to one year of deprivation of freedom;
• one person was sentenced to two and a half years of prison;
• two persons were sentenced to prison terms up to five years;
• six persons were sentenced to prison terms up to 10 years;
• one person was sentenced to 12 years of prison;
• three persons were sentenced to prison terms up to 20 years;
• five persons were sentenced to prison terms over 20 years;
• one person was acquitted.

The improvement in law enforcement quality is also demonstrated by the fact that most of the convicts for violent crimes (20 of 25 convicts) were sentenced to various prison terms in the period under report.

As it can be seen from the given data, suspended sentences were given to one fifth of the convicts (5 of 25). The reduction of the share of suspended sentences for violent crimes is a positive tendency, though some of the suspended sentences seem dubious to us. Some members of group trials (sentences in the case of a Nazi skinhead gang from Tomsk, and in the case of a group attack in an electric train in the Moscow suburbs) were given suspended sentences because the court could not prove their direct participation in the attack. But a suspended sentence for a person in Tver who wounded an immigrant from Tajikistan with a knife seems unreasonably soft to us.

During this period, at least three major gangs of neo-Nazi were convicted in Tomsk, Nizhny Novgorod (convicts received between 21 and 25 years in a maximum security colony), and Irkutsk (gangleader Yevgeny ‘Boomer’ Panov, who has appeared many times before the court for racist attacks, was finally sentenced in September to 18 years in a maximum security colony). [27]

Apart from this, we should mention two sentences issued for ideologically motivated violent crimes although the motives were not represented in the indictment. In November 2011, the Angarsk city court in the Irkutsk region finally [28] issued a statement [29] in the case of a Nazi skinhead attack against a camp of ecological activists in July 2007 that resulted in serious injuries (eight persons) and the death of 21-year-old Ilya Borodaenko. Four persons were sentenced to long terms of deprivation of freedom, and 16 were given suspended terms.[30] The sentence aroused both the prosecution’s and the defense’s doubts, and was appealed.

In October, people involved in the unrest on Manezhnaya Square in December 2010 were convicted as well. Five persons (three were members of the banned Other Russia party (Drugaya Rossiya) led by Eduard Limonov) received between two and five years in a maximum-security colony for taking part in mass disorders. The severity of this sentence is hard to estimate, due to the insufficient practice for cases on taking part in mass disorders. It is clear that the convicts were not the instigators of the unrest, and it was not only them who took part in the disorders, to put it mildly. One can suppose that this will not be the only process, and that some other persons involved in the unrest will appear, but so far we are unaware of any other people detained, nor of any investigation. [31]

Punishments for propaganda

From September to November 2011, at least 16 sentences for xenophobic propaganda were issued in 12 regions (the Moscow, Arkhangelsk, Chelyabinsk, Kaluga, Saratov, Tyumen, and Voronezh regions, the Khabarovsk Krai, Primorye Krai, and republics of Adygea, Chuvashia and Komi) against 16 people. In all, from the beginning of 2011, 68 such sentences were issued in 37 regions of Russia, with 68 people convicted.

In the vast majority of sentences (15 of 16), Article 282 Part 1 was used; in 11 cases it was the only article used; in four cases it was combined with Article 280 (public calls for extremist activity). There was a single sentence that used only Article 280, in the case of an anti-Asian and anti-Semitic inscription on the wall of a building in Khabarovsk.

• The court rulings for propaganda during this period were allocated as follows:
• two persons were sentenced to deprivation of freedom;
• eight persons received suspended sentences without additional sanctions;
• three persons were sentenced to various fines;
• three persons were sentences to obligatory labor.

In autumn 2011, the share of suspended sentences for propaganda started to rise again (eight of 17 persons) in comparison to previous periods (six of 20 in summer 2011, five of 15 in spring). A lesser portion of convicts (six persons) faced punishments not linked with deprivation of freedom. We consider obligatory labor or fines to be more adequate punishments for such crimes.

We do not approve of suspended sentences for propaganda because they do not stop most convicts who are convinced ultra-nationalist or teenagers and youths who do not worry (yet) about their future. Only for a few convicts is a suspended sentence a real punishment, because it can cause appreciable harm to their reputation and career.

However we by no means stand for indispensable deprivation of freedom as a punishment for such crimes. But in some cases, sentences to deprivation of freedom are justifiable, such as in the case of 21-year-old Denis Kuznetsov (aka Dima Skhe), leader of neo-Nazi group Nord-East-88, who received a real prison term. While the members of his group are suspected of committing a series of attacks and a murder, the group’s ideological-operational leader did not take part in the attacks, so he was sentenced for propaganda. Another similar sentence seems questionable: Vladimir Masalovich was sentenced in the Republic of Komi for posting xenophobic comments to articles on the web (we are unaware of what his comments said). He was given eight months of deprivation of freedom while serving the sentence in a colony settlement. We consider deprivation of freedom for such a petty crime to be an excessive penalty.

Again, we are forced to state that the quality of prosecution for propaganda remains unchanged. Courts still issue sentences for replicas on the web, uploading films to file-sharing networks, xenophobic inscriptions and drawings on walls. It seems that such activities should not be subject to criminal prosecution, and instead should be considered in administrative courts.

In autumn 2011, we again saw cases where Article 282¹ (organization of an extremist community) was used.

In September 2011, a leader of the Northern Brotherhood organization (Severnoe bratstvo), radical nationalist Anton ‘Fly’ Mukhachev, was convicted under that article. He received nine years of deprivation of freedom (in combination with Article 159 Part 4, fraud).[32] In the Republic of Bashkiria, 42-year-old organizer of a cell of the Caucasus Emirate in Oktyabrsky village was sentenced to one year of deprivation of freedom in a colony settlement (in combination with Article 222 Part 1, illegal purchase, sale, transfer or carrying of weapon, its main parts, ammunition, explosives, and explosive devices).[33] Finally, in autumn activist of the association Rus the Spiritual Tribal Power (Dukhovno-rodovaya Derzhava Rus’) Nikolai Lozinsky was convicted under this article in Krasnodar after having sent the organization’s materials to the regional government and law enforcement bodies. The court sentenced him to one year of deprivation of freedom in a colony settlement. [34]

In all, Article 282¹ was used in six sentences in 2011.

Administrative measures

Federal List of Extremist Materials

During the three autumn months, the Federal List of Extremist Materials was supplemented three times and grew from 967 to 1031 items.

As before, materials were added to the list without output data or with extremely generalized URLs (for instance, in one case the URL of a free file sharing hosting www.ifolder.ru was given), with spelling or syntax errors (even when mentioning the names of courts), and with repeats. [35]

In autumn, the list was supplemented by Islamic materials (texts of Hizb ut-Tahrir including the Khilafah magazine and Kavkazcenter website and articles published there);Jehovah’s Witnesses materials; two websites of the banned National Bolshevik Party (NBP); various racist materials including books, newspapers and leaflets published by the publishing houses Russian Truth (Russkaya pravda), Russian Bulletin (Russkii vestnik), Knight (Vityaz’); articles from magazines Arkaim and Atheneum (Atenei); a brochure of the Minin and Pozharsky All-Russian People’s Militia (NOMP, Vserossiiskoe narodnoe opolchenie imeni Minina i Pozharskogo); and the texts ‘Bared Teeth’ (Oskal) and ‘Smell of Death’ (Zapakh smerti), which are popular among Nazi skinheads.

As this report was being written, the list comprised 1057 items. Thirty-eight items were 'zeroed' (withdrawn while the numbering was maintained), five of them removed because they duplicated others, and were 33 removed because court rulings deeming the respective materials extremist were cancelled. Thirty-eight items reflect duplicate court rulings (to say nothing of the items corresponding to similar texts with different output data). One item duplicates a court ruling already mentioned in the list.

Deeming organizations extremist

In autumn, the list of extremist organizations published on the Justice Ministry’s website has also been supplemented.[36] Now it comprises 28 items. Three organizations were added:

• the religious group of Sokolov O.V., Russkikh V.V., and Petin A.G. professing, cultivating and spreading ideas of the doctrine of the Ancient Russian Inglist Church of Orthodox Ingling Old Believers (Drevnerusskaya Inglisticheskaya Tserkov’ Pravoslavnykh Staroverov-Inglingov). The title is written as it appears on the list, although the same doctrine is mentioned elsewhere therein, including the word ‘Ingliisticheskaya’ (as in the organization’s documents) that was deemed extremist by the Maikop regional court of the Republic of Adygea on December 12, 2008.
• the interregional association Russian All-National Union (RONS, Russkii obshchenatsional’nyi soyuz) was deemed extremist by a Vladimir provincial court ruling on May 30, 2011.
• the interregional public organization Movement against Illegal Immigration was deemed extremist by the Moscow provincial court on April 18, 2011, and the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation on August 9, 2011.

The formal reason to ban the Inglings Old Believers in Adygea was that ‘the symbolic and cult practices of the group contained symbols so similar to Nazi ones that they could be confused.’ However, the court was likely to have other grounds to close the organization: the Inglings’ religious doctrine includes openly racist statements (and has nothing to do with the Old Believers in spite of the group’s title), which was a reason to ban three such organizations in Omsk in 2004. [37]

The first of the three organizations added to the list was banned in 2008 already, the two others in 2011. RONS is an Orthodox ultra-right organization established in 1990.[38] It is not quite clear why the organization was banned. It is reported only that materials confiscated from Vladimir RONS members during a raid were deemed extremist. RONS actively led an ultra-right propaganda movement and was involved in violent actions.

We have no doubts about the appropriateness of the ban of the third organization, the DPNI. As we have written before, leaders and members of the DPNI have repeatedly made truly dangerous inflammatory statements, and this organization was directly linked to racist violence. [39]

It is remarkable that the Justice Ministry planned to transfer its functions of control and registration of parties and non-profit organizations to other state bodies in an October 2011 bill proposal. In particular, the Justice Ministry proposed excluding from its duties the obligation to warn public and religious organizations of the admissibility of extremist activity found in the law On Combating Extremist Activity, its right to demand courts liquidate or ban public organizations, and its obligation to supplement the List of Extremist Materials. The ministry planned to pass these functions to the Prosecutor General’s office, but the bill received a negative response within other state bodies and is not likely to be officially considered.

Other administrative measures

In autumn 2011, the Federal Service for the Supervision of Information Technologies and Communications’ (Roskomnadzor) list of anti-extremist warnings to editorial staff was only very lightly supplemented.

The agency reported on only one warning, sent to the editorial staff of the newspaper By Their Right Names (Svoimi imenami) [40] for publishing an article by N.P. Zubkov entitled ‘What to do? Revolution!’ (Chto delat’? Revolyutsiyu!) in issue 31 (48) released on August 2, 2011; and ‘Smash the Rat Front!’ (Krysinyi front razgromit’!) and ‘The People Will Win’ (Narod pobedit!) in issue 33 (50), released on August 16, 2011. These articles summon readers to ‘organize motion at plants in Moscow and the Moscow region, and in the most important regional strategic locations including war plants and storages,’ and to ‘attract workers and servicemen in the ranks’ for an armed struggle ‘against the anti-popular regime’ in order to ‘free the people’ from living ‘in slavery.’

This is the second warning to the newspaper. The first was issued for publishing the article ‘The Kremlin Incites a People’s Revolution’ (Kreml’ tolkaet narod k revolyutsii) in issue 11 (29), March 15, 2011. According to the law On Combating Extremist Activity, media activity should be stopped if a warning given to its editorial staff for extremism was not appealed in the court and if measures were not taken at a stated time to remove violations that led to the warning, or if new facts are revealed that indicate signs of extremism in the medium’s activities. There is a practice in Russian legislation to address courts after the second warning has been issued, not contested or unsuccessfully contested in the court. In October 2011, Roskomnadzor addressed the Moscow City Court calling on an end to By Their Right Names’ activities, in compliance with anti-extremist legislation.

From September to November 2011, the practice of prosecution under various articles of the Administrative Code continued. However, information on such practices is still mostly unpublished, and it’s impossible to make even an approximate estimation of this activity.

We are aware of only four court rulings in the Kaluga, Omsk and Tyumen regions and the Republic of Tatarstan. Two sentences were issued under Article 20.29, mass distribution of extremist materials, for uploading songs and texts from the Federal List of Extremist Materials to a file-sharing network. The two other rulings were issued under Article 20.3 Part 1, propaganda and public demonstration of Nazi attributes and symbols. Fans of FC Spartak Moscow were blamed for the clashes at a match of the 27^th round in the Premier League between FC Rubin Kazan and Spartak on October 16 at the Central Stadium in Kazan. The other case was against a businesswoman in Syzran (Samara region) who made a picture with the title of a studio Gestapo Tattoo, and a page in a social network and a website under the same name. In all the cases, the defendants were fined.

[1] We have used the materials of daily monitoring by the Sova Center (including that performed in several regions). The monitoring was held with state support allocated as grants according to the Direction of the President of Russian Federation

127-rp of 2 March 2011.

[2] The number of people suffered increased by 20 people compared to what we had written in the respective report last year.

[3] The classification of victims is made in respect of supposed motives of the attacker(s).

[4] From January 2009, these instructions began to be spread as direct guidelines for actions. According to them, neo-Nazi must throw fake explosives with texts seemingly written from the part of Muslims or people from Caucasus. Such actions meant to lead to the discriminative activity of special services against people from Caucasus and Muslims living in the cities. It is expected that such incidents would be replicated b the media. We have registered before regular appearances of graffitti possibly committed by Caucasian nationalists or Islamists that turned out to be made by the ultra-right themselves. See further in: Kozhevnikova Galina. Pod znakom politicheskogo terrora. Radikal’nyi natsionalizm v Rossii i protivodeistvie emu v 2009 godu // Sova Center. 2011. 2 February (http://sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/publications/2010/02/d17889/).

[5] In all, from the beginning of 2011, at least 10 acts of vandalism were committed at cemeteries in Nizhnii Novgorod against Muslim tombs. See further in: Alperovich V., Yudina N. Spring 2011: Causes Ce'le`bres and New Ultra-right Formations // Sova Center. 2011. 12 July (http://www.sova-center.ru/en/xenophobia/reports-analyses/2011/07/d22101/).

[6] We should note that we do not mention non-serial and not glaring cases of graffitti.

[7] N. Slepnev My ne idem na s’’ezd partii Spravedlivaya Rossiya // Blog on Ekho Moskvy radio website. 2011. 23 September (http://www.echo.msk.ru/blog/nikitaslepnev/814574-echo/).

[8] Obrashchenie k meru Moskvy Sergeyu Sobyaninu po povodu predstoyashchego prazdnovaniya Kurban - bairama // DPNI website. 2011. 10 September.

[9] Trebovaniya Russkoi platformy // Russian Platform website. 2011. 5 September.

[10] Dve tropki marshei protiv etnoprestupnosti // Pravda.Ru. 2011. 28 September (http://www.pravda.ru/politics/parties/other/28-09-2011/1093203-etnomarsh-0).

[11] We should remind that the young man died on 19 August after a brawl with mix fight champion Rasul Mirzaev. See on the incident and the response from the part of the ultra-right community in: Alperovich V., Yudina N. Summer 2011: A New Batch of Neo-Nazi Convicts and Dreams of a Second Manezh // Sova Center. 2011. 9 October (http://www.sova-center.ru/en/xenophobia/reports-analyses/2011/11/d22976/).

[12] Rossiiskaya Federatsiya na sluzhbe Allakha // [Matvei Tszen’s journal]. 2011. 6 October.

[13] Pridurki ili provokatory? // [Sofya Budnikova’s journal]. 2011. 11 October.

[14] We should remind that the Russian Image held a concert of Kolovrat on 4 November 2009 on Bolotnaya Square during the Russian March. The concert gathered about 2,000 people.

[15] ‘White carriage’ is a traditional Nazi skinhead action consisting of a raid through a carriage or several ones with attacks at people of ‘non -Slavic’ origin.

[16] See, for ex.: Medvedev o natsionalizme na vyborakh: ya sam russkii, no ya kak za russkikh, tak i za drugie natsii // Gazeta.Ru. 2011. 11 November (http://www.gazeta.ru/news/lenta/2011/11/11/n_2091773.shtml).

[17] Rustam Dzhalilov. Tipichnyi chinovnik. Islamofobskie zayavleniya Rogozina vyzvali nedoumenie v obshchestve // IslamNews. 2011. 21 October (http://www.islamnews.ru/news-93281.html).

[18] Predlagaem vashemu vnimaniyu interv’yu prokurora g. Moskvy Sergeya Kudeneeva izdaniyu “Rossiiskaya gazeta” // Prosecutor General’s official website. 2011. 23 November (http://genproc.gov.ru/news/news-74267/).

[19] Rossii nuzhen “Russkii Lad”! // KPRF official website. 2011. 18 January (http://kprf.ru/rus_soc/86743.html)

[20] Antisemitskie zayavleniya samarskogo aktivista KPRF // Sova Center. 2011. 11 October (http://www.sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/news/racism-nationalism/2011/10/d22750/).

[21] Yulia Vishnevskaya. Palnikolaich imeni Lenina // Russkii reporter. 2011. 31 October (http://rusrep.ru/article/2011/10/31/palnikolaich).

[22] Andrei Sokolov. Kandidata LDPR Tkachenko v natsionalizme // Komsomolskaya pravda. 2011. 1 December (http://kp.ru/daily/25797.4/2778104/).

[23] The action is timed to the anniversary of die Kristallnacht (9 November 1938). Its annual organizers are the International Youth Network Against Racism and Intolerance (YNRI), the International Youth Network of the Human Rights Education and Civil Enlightenment (HRECE), the European network UNITED for Intercultural Action, the Young Europe international network the international Youth Human Rights Movement YHRM.

[24] We should remind that we consider the qualifying indication in this article as an example of the imperfect legislation. See further in: V Moskve proshla press-konferentsiya na temu “Shto poluchit art-gruppa “Voina” — gosudarstvennuyu premiyu ili tyuremnyi srok?” // Sova center. 2011. 21 February (http:// sova-center.ru/misuse/news/persecution/2011/02/d21026/).

[25] We mean the case of 30-year-old Rais Karabasov who attacked schoolers in a village in Astrakhan region shouting russophobic slogans. Two sentences were issued against him, one for the attack (Article 213 Part 1 and Article 116, both without a qualifying indication), the other for shouting (Article 282). We decided to merge these sentences (it would be more correct from the legal point of view if the court did the same) for our statistics and mention the episode in the section devoted to punishment for violence. The more so, when the court issued a sentence under article 282, it took the preceding sentence for violence into account and gave Karabasov eight months of deprivation of freedom.

[26] Tekst Postanovleniya Plenuma Verkhovnogo suda RF #11 “O sudebnoi praktike po ugolovnym delam o prestupleniyakh ekstremistskoi napravlennosti” ot 28 iyunya 2011 goda // The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation website. 2011. 29 June (http://www.supcourt.ru/Show_pdf.php?Id=7315). See also: Kommentarij “SOVY” na Postanovlenie Plenuma Verkhovnogo suda ob ekstremizme // Sova Center. 2011. 1 July (http://sova-center.ru/misuse/publications/2011/07/d22010/).

[27] Alperovich V., Yudina N. Op. cit.

[28] The case was considered only after the fourth attempt, all the previous times, it returned to the prosecutor’s office for specification.

[29] The attackers were convicted under Article 213 Part 2 (hooliganism committed with objects used as a weapon by a group of people under previous collusion) and Article 111 part 4 (deliberate causing severe harm to health dangerous for a human’s life committed by a group of people with hooligan incentives carelessly leading to death).

[30] Including the aforementioned Yevgeny ‘Boomer’ Panov.

[31] Aleksandr Verkhovsky. Strannosti dvukh prigovorov // Grani.Ru. 2011. 28 October (http://grani.ru/blogs/free/entries/192712.html).

[32] Earlier, another leader of the Northern Brotherhood, Oleg Troshkin, was convicted. See further in: V Moskve osuzhden odin iz liderov “Severnogo bratstva” // Sova Center. 2011. 17 August (http://sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/news/counteraction/2011/08/d22338/).

[33] The organization was deemed terrorist, its activities in the country was banned in February 2010.

[34] In January 2006, a criminal case on administrative offence was instigated against Lozinsky under Article 20.3 of the Administrative Code. He was charged with public demonstration of symbols similar to Nazi ones so that they could be mixed up, on the printed forms of the organization Rada of the Kuban land (Rada zemli Kubanskoi) Rus the Spiritual Tribal Power that were received by the Prosecutor General’s office. Lozinsky was called to administrative account and detained. In 2005, he received a warning from the prosecutor’s office in Central administrative district of Krasnodar on the inadmissibility of extremist activity.

[35] In Autumn, the book ‘Slavic Veda’ by Aleksandr Belogorov (Moscow, Vityaz’, 2004) that had already been put in the list was added once again (compare with item 578).

[36] The full title of the list is ‘The list of public and religious associations, other non-profitable organizations against which courts passed rulings that entered into effect, liquidating them or banning their activity on the grounds provided by the Federal Law ‘On Combating Extremist Activity’.

[37] See the ruling in: Sudebnoe reshenie o likvidatsii pravoradikal’nykh organizatsii v Omske // Sova Center. 2011. 30 April (http://sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/docs/2004/04/d8899/).

[38] RONS’ permanent chairman was Igor Artemov who had been a member of the Vladimir provincial legislative assembly for several terms up to 2010.

[39] Alperovich V., Yudina N. Op. cit.

[40] This newspaper is successor to the To the Stand! (K bar’eru) closed in April 2011. The latter is in turn successor to the Duel (Duel’) newspaper also closed after years of court hearings. See further in: Roskomnadzor trebuet zakryt’ gazetu “Svoimi imenami” // Sova Center. 2011. 7 October (http://sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/news/counteraction/2011/10/d22722/).