"Sova": "Black Hawks" is the first ethnic antinationalist grouping

Maria Rozalskaya, an expert of the Information Analytical Centre "Sova", believes that before the appearance of the "Black Hawks" - a grouping of Caucasian nationals who persecute Russian nationalists, there were no precedents of this sort, and comparing the "Hawks" with the well-known St Petersburg "Red Skinheads" is unreasonable.

"Earlier, there were no resonant cases on the facts that natives from the Caucasus were copying skinheads' behaviour in their own manner," Ms Rozalskaya said to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

According to her story, there were individual cases, when in reply to attacks on Caucasian natives there were counterattacks. "However, there was no context; they just beat faces of each other; while the 'Hawks' organized a grouping, which was engaged in it on a permanent basis. It's something new, anyway, something new in the information space," she has added.

Let us remind you that, according to the Moscow GUVD, the "Black Hawks" is a grouping created by students-natives of the Caucasus, who attacked people of Slavic appearance. Like skinheads, they videoed their actions.

The "Gazeta.Ru" writes, referring to the version of the investigation, that in May 2008 a group of seven citizens of Azerbaijan attacked two students in the metro - Fyodor Markov, 19, and Pavel Novitskiy, 16. The former was hospitalized with heavy traumas, and the latter had also addressed for medical help.

The suspected were detained in summer of 2008 and accused of the crimes assumed by Articles 213 ("Hooliganism") and 111 ("Wilful infliction of heavy harm to one's health") of the Russian Criminal Code. Two of them are in custody, and the remaining five - under recognizance not to leave.

According to Alexei, a member of the Moscow movement "Antifa", before the messages about the arrest of the "Black Hawks" appeared, there was no information about them among his peers. Although an appearance of a certain grouping like the "Black Hawks" could be anticipated. Since permanent attacks of nationalists, according to his story, should give rise to antagonism.

The case of the "Black Hawks" caused a stormy polemics in the society. According to some sources, the grouping was engaged in national-motivated attacks and robberies. Nevertheless, some human rights defenders, who dealt with this case, stick to some other viewpoint.

Thus, Semyon Charny, a human rights defender and a member of the Moscow Human Rights Bureau, expressed the opinion that this was not a causeless attack, as some people try to present it. In his opinion, the members of the grouping were purposefully looking for skinheads in Moscow, and attacked them.

It is known that some of the accused "Black Hawks" are students of the Russian Law Academy at the Ministry of Justice, others - of legal colleges. None of them had any problems with the law before.

According to Maria Rozalskaya, not everything written about the "Black Hawks" in media is trustworthy. But it does not mean that there were no such incidents at all; so far, it is very difficult to clear out the facts. "As far as I know, the "nationalistic" Article 282 is not mentioned in the indictment presented to the 'Black Hawks'," she said.

Earlier, Ms Rozalskaya had stated in relation to the judgements disseminated by media that the "Black Hawks" were so much "just in time" that, probably, this organization was not occasional, she was sure that they had self-organized. Although, as she emphasized, it was her personal opinion.