Informbureau - 05.30.02

 

from SMI.ru

Russian news program "Informbureau"

Outrage of the Russian Skinheads

Jewish Leaders:  Militia is provoking the skinheads

The Russian Jewish Congress and the Jewish Community of Moscow have called for the resignation of Colonel Nikolay Vagin, Head of the Department of the Interior of the Lenin region of Moscow, in response to a recent interview he gave the ‘Izvestiya’ newspaper.  He spoke about the recent event on Kiev Shosse in which a young woman became a victim because she tried to remove a roadside sign with the words ‘Death to Kikes.’  “It is a controversial question,” declared Vagin, “if the placing of such a sign is a violation of law.  I think that from the formal point of view the slogan ‘Death to Kikes’ does not present an appeal for instigating ethnic hatred.  Anyone can be called a ‘kike’ here”.

The Jewish leaders suppose that the statement of the militia head “is an attempt to justify, or at least to lessen the danger of the activities of the neo-Nazi or anti-Semitic organizations.” “Such a statement from an official personality, a colonel of militia, the statement that the contents of the above-mentioned sign does not present an appeal for instigating interethnic hatred, is not less outrageous than the actions of the organizers of the terrorist act itself.  For the fascist organizations this kind of statement presents a hidden encouragement, a signal to them that their actions will remain unpunished in the future as well,” according to a joint statement by Hennadiy Khazanov, Head of the Jewish community of Moscow, Adolf Shayevich, Chief Rabbi of Russia, and Yevgeniy Satanovsky, President of the Russian Jewish Congress.

The Jewish leaders also noted that just a few days ago the skinheads had beaten up a Jewish teenager.  “Here is a definite tendency to an expansion of the anti-Semitic terror,” state the authors.  According to them, in the given situation the declarations of colonel Vagin “are provocative no matter what is the reason:  his misunderstanding of the honor of his uniform coat, or his ideological sympathies with the neo-Nazis.”  

Translated by Judy Turkeltaub
May 31, 2002