2006

On July 28, 2006, president Vladimir Putin approved the amendments to the law "On Countering Extremist Activity." The amendments have raised great concern within civil society in Russia, but the criticism seems not to have been taken into consideration as the bill moved quickly through the State Duma (lower chamber of parliament): the first, second, and third readings were held on June 28, July 7, and July 8, respectively. On July 14, the Council of Federation (upper chamber of parliament) approved the bill, even though some of the senators surprisingly criticized it for representing a threat to civil rights.

Review of the new book: Roger Griffin, Werner Loh and Andreas Umland, Eds. Fascism Past and Present, West and East: An international debate on concepts and cases in the comparative study of the extreme right. With an afterword by Walter Laqueur. Stuttgart: Ibidem-Verlag, 2006.

On 26 June, Human Rights First, an American NGO, released two new reports on hate crimes in the Russian Federation. Executive summary in Russian of the first report is available.

Russian rightwing radicals celebrated June 12, 2006, an official holiday known as Russia Day, with a number of attacks and meetings in different Russian regions.

We have already observed, that Russian radical right-wing internet resources exhibit the tendency to be closed down, which has become evident in March 2006. We note the same tendency in May 2006: six websites run by three Russian neonazi groups have been closed by providers for violations of the custom agreement forbidding straight appeals for terrorism, political murders and racist violence.

On May 18-21, 2006, in St. Petersburg, law enforcement authorities rounded up and arrested a group of skinheads suspected of a series of racist killings committed in the city in 2004 and 2005.

On May 14 2006, more then 150 representatives of different NGOs, youth associations, democratic political parties, independent antifascist groups, ethnic associations, experts, journalists and cultural figures took part in an antifascist conference in Moscow.

The conference has adopted the Program of Action (available in Russian), which will become a basis for forming the Antifascist Front.

Traditionally, April in Russia is associated with outbursts of racist violence. Contributing factors include Adolph Hitler's anniversary in April that Russian skinheads always try to mark by racist attacks, and simply the fact that it is usually warmer and Nazi-oriented teens spend more time outside.

This week marked the end of two high-profile trials, both involving violent racist crimes. Once again, they emphasized the importance of correct legal qualification of racist offences.

During one week two ultranationalists were arrested partly because of their activity on the Net.
And now we see some kind of panic on many ultranationalists' web-sites and forums. Some of them are closed, some other clean themselves from "dangerous" materials.