- Joined
- Feb 7, 2011
- Messages
- 7,701
- Likes
- 9,099
MOSCOW, November 4 (Marc Bennetts, RIA Novosti) - Thousands of Russian nationalists and ultra-conservative Orthodox activists marched along a central Moscow embankment on Sunday to protest mass immigration and demand tougher internal travel restrictions on people from the country's mainly Muslim North Caucasus.
"Russia for Russians, Moscow for Muscovites," chanted protesters, many with their faces covered by scarves or surgical masks, as a police helicopter hovered above. Police said 25 people were arrested for displaying Nazi symbols as the march started.
"Immigrants show no interest in assimilating into Russian society," said Sergei, a 25-year-old office worker, who declined to give his surname. "If things don't change, we could see massive ethnic clashes," he said, as protesters gathered opposite Gorky Park.
Police said some 6,000 people had attended Sunday's approved march, but organizers put this figure at 10,000.
Unsanctioned nationalist rallies also took place across the country, with dozens of arrests reported in St. Petersburg, the Tatar capital, Kazan, and Yekaterinburg in the Urals.
Racial tensions in Russia have been exacerbated by mass labor immigration from former-Soviet Central Asian republics such as Tajikistan, and by frequent clashes in Moscow and other major cities between ethnic Russians and youths from the North Caucasus.
Nationalists point to high crime rates among illegal immigrants as proof that the Kremlin's migration policies have failed. Moscow investigators said earlier this year that illegal immigrants were responsible for around one-third of reported rapes in the city.
The police have claimed success at breaking up neo-Nazi groups in the Moscow region. But race-hate crime figures remain high: 20 people were killed and at least 130 wounded in racially motivated attacks across Russia last year, according to the Sova Center for research into nationalism and racism.
More @ Source: RIA NovostiPresident Vladimir Putin has described himself as a nationalist, and in January pledged to crack down on "aggressive, provocative and disrespectful" internal migrants who fail to respect "the customs of the Russian people."
But he also warned against promoting the creation of a "mono-ethnic, national Russian state," calling it "the shortest path to both the destruction of the Russian people and Russia's sovereignty." However, an opinion poll carried out in August by the independent, Moscow-based Levada Center indicated that 41 percent of Russians agree to some extent with the nationalist slogan "Russia - only for Russians."