Thread: Over 200 detained after anti-migrant riot in southern Moscow

Russia Times
10/13/2013

Over 200 detained after anti-migrant riot in southern Moscow

Police responding to violence in Moscow's Western Biryulyevo district as locals and nationalists are assaulting a local shopping mall Biryuza.(RIA Novosti / Maxim Blinov)

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Moscow police said they detained some 200 people during the mass rioting in a southern district of the city. A mixed crowd of nationalists and locals attacked a warehouse run by natives of the Caucasus, blaming a migrant for the fatal stabbing of a local.

Moscow police said they were putting into effect an emergency plan, codenamed “Volcano,” involving sending scores of riot police to the scene of the clashes, and placing the police officers across the city on high alert.

A crowd of people broke into a warehouse in the southern district of Biryulyovo, hurling rocks, smashing up stalls and vending machines. While the police estimated the crowd at about 350 people, witnesses at the scene suggested the number of rioters could be as many as 1,000.

RIA Novosti / Ramil Sitdikov

Some of the most aggressive participants of Sunday’s unrest clashed with riot police and attempted to block the street after several people were detained and forced into police vans.

Riot police, who were about 200 strong at the time, failed to block part of the crowd from rushing in the direction of the warehouse.

Meanwhile, the locals lashed at the police officers and accused the authorities of covering the wave of migrant crime, as well as not fighting illegal immigration.
The violent scenes came after a similar rampage took place at a nearby shopping center, where the rioters had originally gathered. The outraged crowd demanded that the police find the killer, allegedly a man from the Caucasus or Central Asia, and clamp down on illegal migration in the area.

Anti-migrant protesters attack shopping mall

Residents of the Biryulyovo district in southern Moscow took to the streets following the fatal stabbing of Egor Shcherbakov, a Muscovite, earlier in the week. Late on Thursday evening, when Shcherbakov and his girlfriend were on their way home, the young couple were attacked by an unidentified man who stabbed Shcherbakov with a knife.

On Saturday a group of about 40 people gathered for a protest in the area, urging the police to find and punish the attacker – whom they said was a migrant from either the North Caucasus or Central Asia. They demanded that the district’s police chief resign, and that a local vegetable warehouse, where many migrants work, be closed.

However, the protest was followed by an unsanctioned rally on Sunday, which turned violent as hundreds of angry protesters attacked a shopping mall – attempting to set it on fire and breaking windows. A group of people among the crowd reportedly broke into stores, ransacking them and looting goods.

Police reported that seven people were detained after the shopping mall attack. Unofficial reports suggested that the number of those detained – mainly young people – was greater, however. One police officer was injured by a bottle thrown by protesters, while an elderly female relative of Shcherbakov’s narrowly escaped being hit by another bottle thrown by people in the crowd.



Suspect in Egor Shcherbakov's killing (Photo from CCTV camera as published by Interior Affairs Ministry)

Protesters demanded that all the suspected rioters being held by police should be freed, and ignored police attempts to calm the crowd. Police told the crowd to disperse, as the protest was not sanctioned by the city administration, as required by law.

However, the crowd refused to disperse. Chanting nationalist slogans, protesters attempted to block a road and turned over vehicles and dumpsters. They then attempted to break into the vegetable warehouse.

Witnesses said that many of those taking part in Sunday’s protests were members of radical nationalist groups.

Egor’s girlfriend said she was against such protests, since she did not want “interethnic conflicts” to be inflamed. “I know this crime won’t remain unpunished,” she told Moskva 24 TV channel.

Meanwhile, authorities in Moscow’s Southern Administrative district have decided to set up an operation headquarters to counter illegal migration. The body - comprised of police, federal migration service representatives and voluntary people’s guard – will gather daily. The new foundation will focus on identifying flats rented to illegal migrants, patrolling streets and organizing sweeps on reports from citizens, the prefecture’s press service told Interfax.

Moscow police also promised to pay up to one million roubles for information that would help to identify and find the murder suspect.


http://rt.com/news/moscow-nationalis...-violence-142/

Moscow race riots
10/13/2013

13 October 2013 Last updated at 19:34 ET

Moscow riots follow 'migrant' murder



Russian police detain at least 400 people after a protest against a murder blamed on a migrant from the North Caucasus turns violent.

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October 3, 2013 by banislamofficial

RUSSIA DETAINS 300 MUSLIMS DURING PRAYER


MOSCOW – In a new crackdown on Russian Muslims, Moscow police have detained more than 300 worshippers after rounding them up during prayer at a Muslim prayer room in the Russian capital.
“The situation in the North Caucasus should be kept under particular control,” President Vladimir Putin told a meeting of security force officers, Reuters reported on Friday, June 7.
“The policy in the fight against corruption, crime and the insurgency has to be carried out harshly and consistently.”
In a raid carried on Friday, the forces detained 300 Muslims, including 170 foreigners, without disclosing reasons behind their arrest.
The forces, led by Federal Security Service (FSB), also confiscated Islamic literature to check its content.
Friday’s raid is the third targeting Muslim places of worship in Moscow or St Petersburg this year.
It comes as Russia prepares for next year’s Winter Olympics in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.
The Russian Federation is home to some 23 million Muslims in the north of the Caucasus and southern republics of Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan.
Islam is Russia’s second-largest religion representing roughly 15 percent of its 145 million predominantly Orthodox population.
Russia is struggling to extinguish an insurgency that stems from its two devastating wars against separatists in Chechnya, just east of Ingushetia and North Ossetia, and has been fuelled by chronic unemployment, police brutality and poverty.
Militants fighting for an Islamic state in the mountainous region have increasingly targeted Muslim leaders who are backed by the Russian authorities.
Two decades after a territorial dispute erupted into a brief war in 1992, there is also lingering tension between mostly Christian North Ossetia and mostly Muslim Ingushetia, but there was no indication the shooting was linked to that conflict.
http://www.onislam.net/english/news/...ng-prayer.html

http://banislamofficial.com/2013/10/...during-prayer/