INTERNATIONAL ANARCHIST MOVEMENT-RUSSIA:

ANTI-FASCIST ACTIVIST MURDERED IN MOSCOW:

The following story is from the 'The Other Russia' website, a news service for the opposition in the increasingly authoritarian Russian state. As the story makes plain there is a growing neo-fascist movement in Russia that the authorities are quite tolerant of.

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Anti-fascist Activist Killed in Moscow:
A young activist involved with a Russian anti-fascist movement has been killed in the country’s capital, the Interfax news agency reports (RUS). 26-year-old Fedor Filatov died in an area hospital on October 10th from multiple knife wounds sustained early that morning.

A representative of the Antifa movement said Filatov, known in the movement as “Nok,” was jumped by a group of assailants near him home as he went to work. “According to our information, four to eight people armed with knives were waiting for him in his courtyard,” he said.

The source said that a Russian neo-nazi group had already claimed responsibility for the murder on an internet forum as recently as October 12th. While a murder investigation has been launched, law enforcement officials had yet to verify that information.

The Antifa source said the movement considers Filatov’s murder a “planned action” by extremists. “There is not a shadow of a doubt that he died for his beliefs,” the group’s members wrote in a statement.

Russia has seen a growing presence of neo-nazi and extreme nationalist organizations in recent years, and attacks on immigrants and non-ethnically Russian people have become more common. Immigrant community leaders have meanwhile accused authorities and law enforcement of being too lenient in pursuing ethnically motivated crimes.

Groups like Antifa have stepped in to try to counter the growing influence of neo-nazis and denounce their racist and violent activities. Filatov himself helped to found the Moscow Trojan Skinheads, a group described as “a community of anti-political, anti-racist skinheads from Moscow and the Moscow Oblast.”

Filatov was not the first anti-fascist activist to be attacked and killed in recent years.

In November 2005, vocal activist and musician Timur Kacharava, 20, died from knife wounds in St. Petersburg. In April 2006, 19-year-old Alexander Ryukhin was killed by six neo-nazis outside a punk-rock concert. In January 2007, Ivan Yelin was stabbed 20 times by unidentified attackers on the outskirts of St. Petersburg. In March of this year, 16-year-old Alexei Krylov died in Moscow after a group of 15 neo-nazis armed with knives attacked 7 young people near the Kitai Gorod metro station.

Each young man had taken part in the Russian anti-fascist movement.
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Watch “From Russia With Hate,” a short documentary on neo-nazism in Russia, from Current-TV.

RUSSIA:

NAZIS ATTEMPTED TO BOMB A FESTIVAL IN ST. PETERSBURG:

FROM AVTONOM:

With the disintegration of the Soviet Empire neo-fascist groups have proliferated in the ex-colonies and in Russia itself. The following is a report from the Russian anarchist website, Avtonom, about the most recent attack on anarchist-connected events in Russia by neo-Nazis. It has been slightly edited for clarity.

"On October 13th a bomb of 200 grams trotyle equivalent failed to detonate at the 'Music of the Streets' festival organized in the Roks Club of St. Petersburg. Groups due to perform at the festival included Spitfire (St. petersburg), Blisterhead (Gothenburg, Sweden), Rejected (Lappeenranta, Finland), Turbo Lax (Tolyatti), Mister X (Grodna, Belarus), and Mass Murder (St. Petersburg). During the concert, while Blisterhead was performing, the audience noticed a strange bag smoking in the hall which was passed to the scene. Security quickly moved it to the yard where it was covered with water. The anti-bomb squad found a bomb, 200 grams in trotyle equivalent, covered with 800 grams of bolts and other ripping objects. The concert was halted and people were evicted heavy handedly from the premises. OMON riot police beat some people who were on their way out.

There is little doubt that this bomb was set up by nazis, who have a long history of attempted attacks against Spitfire. Five concert goers were also ambushed by 15-20 nazis armed with iron bars and bottles. One girl was hospitalized after being beaten in the head with an iron bar, but she has already been released from hospital".

Molly Notes: A couple of things stand out in this report. The obvious one is the attitude of the police. Riot squads are not the usual way to evacuate a building. They might be useful if they were held back until the fights actually started between the anarchists and the nazis, but it seems their only purpose was to intimidate the concert goers. The other thing that struck Molly was the phrase that the suspicious package was "passed to the scene". I hope that this is merely a mistranslation. I have this vision of some very "bright" individual who on seeing a suspicious package thinks that the best thing to do is to bring it into a crowded room. Wow.