2,100 arrested in Moscow to defuse ethnic clashes

Sat, 18 Dec 2010

Moscow - Police in Moscow on Saturday arrested at least 2,100 young Russians and migrants from the Caucasus region in a bid to avoid renewed street battles driven by ethnic tensions, Ria Novosti state news agency reported.

Numerous weapons were confiscated as part of the arrests, a police spokesman told the agency late Saturday evening. Earlier reports put the number of arrests at 250.

The arrested included 1,300 suspects in Moscow and another 800 in the region around the capital. Dozens were also arrested in Volgograd in south-east Russia.

Heavily armed security forces dispersed an initially approved ultra-nationalist rally in the north of the capital, after some of the 500 estimated participants lit torches.

Police also detained 130 people near the city's Red Square, where some 5,000 extremists had rioted and targeted migrants last weekend. According to police, most of the detainees were teenagers from Moscow's outskirts.

President Dmitry Medvedev called on Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev to have significantly more surveillance cameras mounted at central squares across the country to make it more difficult for rioters to escape unrecognised.

Ultra-nationalists and migrant groups issued internet calls for new mass rallies in the capital. That led to the deployment of a large security contingent in several areas of the metropolis on Saturday morning.

In the south-western city of Samara, police also temporarily detained some 100 youths who had planned to gather in a park.

Tensions have been mounting in Russia for several days, with bloody clashes between Russians and migrants repeatedly flaring up.

Far-right extremists have called for revenge in the wake of the death of a football fan who was shot in a Moscow street, supposedly by Caucasus nationals he had been arguing with. Migrant workers have pledged to put up a fight.

Street battles between the two sides unfolded across the capital and in other cities on Wednesday, leading to the arrests of 1,700 people. In Moscow alone, 1,300 people were detained.

Ultra-nationalist groups, numbering in the hundreds, had roamed the city with firecrackers and smoke grenades, shouting slogans like "Caucasians, go home" and "Russia for Russians."

Experts say the Russian football scene has been heavily infiltrated by the far right. Nonetheless, the scale of the violence has shocked Moscow, where authorities usually tamp down mass protests.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/358828,moscow-defuse-ethnic-clashes.html.