A 21-year-old resident of the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad has been sentenced to three years in prison for an attempt to blow up a mosque under construction, a local court said on Thursday.
Investigators revealed that in November 2011 Anatoly Nasonov plotted to destroy the site to protest the construction of a Muslim house of worship in his neighborhood.
A Manassas man accused of being a white supremacist was arrested Wednesday by members of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force after allegedly receiving a fully automatic AK-47 from an undercover agent.
Court records show Douglas Howard Story, 48, of the Manassas area, allegedly provided a semi-automatic AK-47, along with $120, to an undercover law enforcement agent with the intent that it be modified to become fully automatic. He then allegedly received the modified weapon from an undercover agent and was subsequently arrested, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Neil H. MacBride and FBI Assistant Director for the Washington Field Office announced Story’s arrest Wednesday. He has been charged with a violation of the National Firearms Act – a charge that carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
The close links that have been established between a section of the Israeli right and European far-right Islamophobes on the common ground of support for Zionism are well known (see for example here and here). But it is still difficult to credit the report that representatives of a Russian group of Hitler-admiring, Holocaust-denying neo-Nazis recently visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial centre in Jerusalem and were welcomed to the Knesset by two of the most notorious anti-Muslim MKs, Aryeh Eldad and Ayoob Kara. Richard Silverstein has the details:
Under the auspices of Tuvia Lerner, editor of the Russian edition of Arutz 7, the media voice of the settler movement, they inveigled themselves an invitation to meet with far-right MKs Aryeh Eldad and Ayoob Kara. They also toured Yad VaShem without telling anyone there that they were Holocaust deniers. Like I told you, this story has to be read to be believed. The two Russians have been photographed giving Nazi salutes, celebrating Der Führer’s birthday, and they published songs of praise to Adolf Hitler on their website.
Naturally, when they met with the MKs the ideas they espoused were quite different. One of the neo-Nazis told Israeli TV that the concept of Israel “excites me,” because it involves “an ancient people who took upon itself a pioneer project to revive a modern state and nation.” The TV reporter tartly asked how the neo-Nazi of yesterday suddenly became a Zionist. How they did it, is by finding a common enemy: Islam (sound familiar?). The second neo-Nazi tells the interviewer: “We’re talking about radical Islam which is the enemy of humanity, enemy of democracy, enemy of progress and of any sane society.”
The website Islamnews.ru reports that when worshippers arrived at the Altyn Mosque in the Russian town of Berezovsky for Juma prayer they found that the mosque wall had been defaced with nationalist slogans, including “Russia for Russians!!!”.
Exposing the English Defence League draws our attention to this Facebook post by the EDL’s Wigan Division applauding the Russian neo-Nazi group who were recently imprisoned after being convicted of a series of racist murders in which they specifically targeted Muslims.
A court in Moscow has sentenced five members of a neo-Nazi gang to life in prison for the racially motivated murders of 27 people. Several other members of the outlawed Nationalist Socialist Society were also found guilty – including one woman – and given jail terms of up to 23 years.
The gang targeted Muslims and dark-skinned migrants during 2007-8.
The defendants in the dock joked with each other, taunted the judge and attempted Nazi salutes in handcuffs. As the verdict was read out, they shouted: “Our conscience is above your laws, we’ll be back”, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported.
The 18-month trial heard that the gang had hunted down people in Moscow who were or appeared to be from central and south-east Asia, Africa or the Caucasus region, and brutally attacked them. Ringleader Lev Molotkov, who pleaded not guilty, was described by presiding judge Nikolai Tkachuk as “an extraordinary danger to Russian society”.
In total, 12 people were found guilty of murder, inciting racial hatred, attempting terrorism and participating in extremism. At least one attack was filmed and posted on the internet. Molotkov and four others were sentenced to life, while a young woman, Vasilisa Kovolyova, was among those jailed for for between 10 and 23 years.
RFI reports: “Moscow police Saturday detained three prominent foreign gay rights leaders and a number of local activists after religious hardliners attacked them.”
The “religious hardliners” responsible for this shameful attack were of course Russian Orthodox Christians. But then, nobody would imagine that gay rights demonstrators in Moscow would be attacked by any other sort of religious hardliner. Would they?
Hundreds of Russian nationalists staged a racism-tinged rally in central Moscow on Saturday to demand an end to social payments for Muslim republics of the volatile North Caucasus region.
The sanctioned gathering came amid spiking social tensions and lingering security fears from a January suicide bombing at the main Moscow airport that killed 37 people and was claimed by the nation’s most feared Islamist warlord.
“We are tired of seeing the Caucasus youth creating mayhem on our streets and at our schools and universities and then going unpunished,” rally co-organiser Alexander Khromov told the Interfax news agency.
The event was officially titled “Stop Feeding the Caucasus!” and included leaders from far-right organisations that rights groups link to deadly attacks on migrants from Russia’s Caucasus and the Central Asian republics.
Recent polls have shown a rise in Russian xenophobia and a sense of voter frustration over the influx of mostly Muslim newcomers to cities that are already creaking under the strain of heavy crime and poorly-funded services.
Saturday’s demonstrators were comprised mostly of Russian youth wearing bomber jackets and hoods.
Several covered their faces with bandannas to hide their identities from the police while many more raised their right arms in Nazi-style salutes while chanting slogans in praise of ethnic Russians.
Last Sunday, residents of the Moscow District, Kaliningrad, held the third picket against building mosque in the Yuzhny city park.
About 100 people participated in the protest action allowed by the city administration. The picket was traditionally held at the park entrance where the mosque building had started.
A correspondent questions the relationship between Peter Tatchell of the gay rights group OutRage! and the right-wing Russian politician Alexey Mitrofanov.