14:42, 11 April 2008

Charny: Moscow authorities conceal growth of ethnic-motivated crimes

According to Semyon Charny, expert of the Moscow Human Rights Bureau, recently Moscow has witnessed a rise in number of interethnic crimes, but the authorities of Russia hush up these facts and figures.

Mr Charny thinks that Moscow is in the obvious lead among all Russia's regions by the number of neo-Nazi crimes. "Firstly, the interethnic relations are very tense here, and, secondly, huge propaganda structures, PR specialists, etc. are concentrated here, therefore, we see more attacks here," the expert said to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

While the law enforcement bodies of the country state that the number of nationalistic crimes has doubled within the recent years, the Moscow authorities, on the contrary, speak about reduction of ethnic-motivated criminality. The bureaucrats are trying to create an attractive image of the city and hide the truthful statistics.

Author: Olesya Ivanova, CK correspondent