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Friday April 23, 1999

Russian neo-Nazis under fire after shul is vandalized

MOSCOW (JTA) -- Russia's largest and best-organized far-right organization suffered a major defeat this week.
A court in the Russian capital banned the Moscow branch of the neo-Nazi Russian National Unity movement -- a group that may have

None of the charges brought against the group, whose members wear black uniforms and sport armbands reminiscent of the Nazi swastika, centered on its neo-Nazi character or on its attempts to incite ethnic, religious or racial strife, a punishable crime under Russian law.

Just the same, Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, who in December blocked the RNU from holding its national convention in Moscow, hailed the court's decision and said his office will continue to work against the neo-Nazi group.

Before the verdict was announced, RNU leaders said they would ignore the court decision, adding that they plan to participate in Russia's parliamentary elections, which are slated for December.

Last year, RNU leader Alexander Barkashov said he may run in next year's presidential elections.

In the April 12 attack on the Minsk synagogue, which coincided with the Orthodox Christian Easter, arsonists set fire to the entrance of the Dauman Street Synagogue and the slogan "Bash the Yids, Save Russia" was spraypainted on the synagogue's wall.

No one was injured in the incident, but the synagogue's door was destroyed.

Yuri Dorn, a Jewish leader in Minsk, said teenagers with the RNU may have been responsible for the attack.

Yakov Basin, a longtime Jewish activist and the director of the Minsk-based Belarus-American Bureau on Human Rights, which is affiliated with the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews, said the incident was just another sign of rising anti-Semitism in this former Soviet republic.

According to Basin, RNU supporters have recently been distributing anti-Semitic materials throughout Minsk.

Earlier this year, a group of RNU supporters severely beat three members of a leading human rights group in Belarus.

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