In April, 2009, not less than 15 people, including 2 fatalities, became victims of racist and nationalistic attacks. In all, from the beginning of 2009, not less than 23 people died and 98 were injured (in the same period of time, in 2008, 66 people died and 207 were injured).

In April, violent incidents were reported in Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Arkhangelsk and Yaroslavl.

A publication on one of the neo-Nazi websites attracted public attention in April: the "Day of Anger" was announced on May 5, 2009. This information was also republished by the mainstream Mass Media. The neo-Nazis declared that they were ready to commit mass racist and political attacks in memory of Maxim Bazylev, a known neo-Nazi leader who committed suicide on March 25, after he had been arrested and charged with several murders. The authors of the publication even attached a countdown ticker on the website.

On April 29, Alexander Belov (Potkin), the leader of the Movement Against Illegal Immigration, resigned from chairmanship. His motive was to save the organization from legal formalities which must arise in the case if Belov will be found guilty under article 282 of the Criminal Code (incitement to hatred).

In April, there were not many cases of hate motivated vandalism. We registered only 3 cases which we can with certainty attribute as hate motivated. These were swastikas on the Lenin monument in Pyatigorsk, portraits of Hitler on the walls of buildings in Volgograd and anti-Christian slogans on the walls of an Orthodox church in Kaluga region.

The Federal List of Extremist Materials was enlarged on April 1 and 6, by paragraphs 362-367. We believe, that paragraphs 362-365 are examples of misuse of anti-extremist legislation. Besides, the book by V. Istarkhov :Udar russkikh bogov; (:Russian Gods' Strike;) is still on the list, while in January, 2009, the case was reconsidered and the book was not banned as an extremist one.

In April we did not register any guilty verdict for violence with a hate motive recognized by the court. There were several cases when such a motive was suspected, but not proved, or was not included in the verdict as an aggravating circumstance. The former is the case of a group of teenagers who murdered a Kyrgyz man in January, 2008, and disguised it as a ritual murder. The latter is the verdict against a policeman in Nizhny Novgorod who was convicted for beating an Azerbaijan man. The racist insults he used were mentioned in the court decision, but they were not considered as aggravating circumstances. Besides, the hate motive was not recognized in the verdict for putting a fake bomb to a synagogue in Omsk. The perpetrator was doomed for deliberately false information about terrorist attack (art. 207 of the Criminal Code).

In all, from the beginning of the year, there were 8 verdicts for hate motivated violence against 24 people (including 4 of them with suspended sentences).

There were 2 verdicts for xenophobic (anti-Semitic) propaganda in April, in Samara and Vologda region. In all, from the beginning of the year, there were not less than 11 verdicts for hate propaganda (art. 282 of the Criminal Code) and 1 verdict for public calls to extremism (art. 280 of the Criminal Code). In 2009, 16 people have been doomed for nonviolent hate crimes, including 6 of them with suspended sentences.