Young Guard: "close the borders"(Russia)

[madkins]

*Migrant laborers seeking work in private
homes or dachas. Young Guard, a pro-
Kremlin youth group, is calling for the
country's borders to be closed.


http://www.themoscowtimes.com/articl.../42/372112.htm


The Moscow Times.com

Youth Group Rallies For Closed Borders

01 November 2008

By Natalya Krainova, Alexandra Odynova

A pro-Kremlin youth group planned demonstrations Saturday, calling for Russia's borders to be closed to migrant laborers in 2009 and saying this was necessary to provide more jobs for Russians in times of the global financial crisis.

United Russia's Young Guard was to picket the Federal Migration Service offices and the headquarters of major developers in Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Chelyabinsk, Novosibirsk and Khabarovsk at noon, the group said in a statement posted on its web site.

Andrei Tatarinov, deputy head of the group's central office, said in the statement that global financial difficulties had led to major layoffs, while in the construction sector, in particular, foreign laborers make up the majority of the workforce.

"We are feeding foreign workers and other states," Tatarinov said. "These positions and this money have to be given to Russian workers!"

A Federal Migration Service spokesman on Friday dismissed the initiative, saying that closing the country's borders to migrant workers would be "impossible."

"We have visa-free travel with many CIS countries," the spokesman said, on customary condition of anonymity.

He also dismissed another Young Guard proposal -- to send group members to assist the agency by patrolling the streets looking for illegal workers.

"The law doesn't allow us to take on nongovernmental organizations [in our work]," he said.

Young Guard also offered to set up job centers across the country to help Russians move into jobs formerly held by foreigners.

Saturday's rallies were to be held outside the Federal Migration Service offices on Ulitsa Verkhnyaya Radishchevskaya, the Ulitsa Barrikadnaya offices of developer PIK and the Moskva-City offices of the Mirax Group.

On Friday at around noon, hundreds of migrant laborers formed a sort of labor market along Yaroslavskoye Shosse for people needing work done on their homes or dachas. The men were strung along the highway from the junction with the Moscow Ring Road divided by nationality -- workers from Tajikistan, Moldavia, Belarus and Russian regions congregated in their own separate groups. They approached cars that stopped, hoping to be offered work.

The men said most of them had ended up looking for work along the highway after developers laid them off from construction sites, citing economic restraints, or simply refused to pay them.

"A building site hires us, and we work one, two or three months, but they don't pay us any money and just toss us out," Dzhamshi Makhmudov, 50-year-old Tajik national, said while waiting at the side of the road. "We come here because private individuals pay more."

The workers stay near Yaroslavskoye Shosse for days, sleeping close to the highway in garages or neighboring houses, he said. Police regularly rounded up men to do forced work, he said, where they are neither fed nor paid and are often beaten with batons.

A city police spokesman referred a request for comment to the Moscow region police, where another spokesman declined immediate comment.

Skara Brae,

madkins

*Igor Tabakov

[Rasp]

"Glory to Russia!"

Ultra-nationalists, Putin supporters march

MOSCOW: Ultra-nationalists made fascist salutes while pro-Kremlin youth yelled praise for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin at varied events in Russia yesterday, marking a People’s Unity Day holiday.

Participants of a ‘Russian march’ wear historical armour as they gather in the centre of Moscow, Russia

In an unsanctioned demonstration that began in a central Moscow metro station, hundreds of far-right demonstrators chanted “Glory to Russia!”� and “Glory to the Russian people!”�

Many were seen raising their right arms in a Nazi-style salute.

About 500 marched down a central Moscow street before riot police intervened, beating the demonstrators with batons.

Between 200 and 400 people were arrested according to different official sources quoted by Russian news agencies, although another demonstration elsewhere in the city with over 1,000 far-right activists was permitted.

“I’m here because this is the only festival in which you can declare your Russianness. It’s necessary to do this so as not to lose one’s identity,”� one demonstrator at the metro station gathering, Alexei Ogloblin, 18, told AFP.

“The threat is from illegal immigrants. The government profits from their cheap labour,”� he said, clutching a red carnation.

In a reminder of ethnic tensions in Russia, local news agencies reported seven people injured in a fight in a public park overnight Monday involving ultra-nationalists and dark-skinned people from the Caucasus region, on Russia’s southern fringe.

Those involved wielded knives and knuckle-dusters, Interfax quoted a police source as saying.

The People’s Unity state holiday was first marked in 2005 on the anniversary of the 1612 expulsion of a Polish-Lithuanian military onslaught from Moscow.

It has attracted criticism from human rights campaigners and opposition groups as reflecting racial intolerance in today’s post-Soviet Russia.

In August the Moscow-based centre SOVA , which monitors racial attacks, said 85 people had been murdered and around 600 seriously injured last year in such attacks.

Another human rights group, the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights, was quoted by Interfax as saying 113 people had been killed in racist attacks so far this year.

In another city square a demonstration by flag-waving pro-Kremlin demonstrators was more patriotic in tone, not focused on race, and received full official support.

About 5,000 people attended the pro-Kremlin event, the RIA-Novosti news agency reported.

Activists from Putin’s United Russia party and its Young Guard wing chanted “We believe in Russia. We believe in ourselves!”� and “Putin! Party! Young Guard!”�

On November 1, the United Russia youth wing launched a campaign against illegal immigration entitled “Our money for our people”�, which it said would include patrols of the country’s dockyards in search of illegal immigrants.

Russian news agency reports also said far-right marches had taken place in Chita, Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, Saint Petersburg and Vladivostok, with anti-fascist activists attempting to disrupt the Novosibirsk demonstration.

[Rasp]

Clashes as Russia marks unity day



Ultra-nationalists demanded a crackdown on illegal immigrants

Clashes have broken out across Russia on National Unity Day, after ultra-nationalists defied official bans on holding marches.

In Moscow, police arrested at least 200 people, some of whom gave a Nazi salute as they tried to rally in the capital.

Arrests were also made in St Petersburg and several major cities in Siberia and the Far East, Russian media report.

On Monday, seven people were hurt when local youths fought migrants from the Caucasus near Moscow, police said.

Seventeen people were also held in the town of Solnechnogorsk and police confiscated stun guns, knives and bats, Russia's Interfax news agency reported.

Thousands of people across Russia on Tuesday took part in peaceful demonstrations that were permitted by the authorities.

At least 8,000 people - mostly pro-Kremlin activists - held a rally in Moscow, officials said.

"I'm here because this is the only festival in which you can declare your Russianness. It's necessary to do this so as not to lose one's identity," Alexei Ogloblin told the AFP news agency.

Demonstrators in the capital are also planning to make a huge "peace blanket" from materials brought to the capital by representatives of nearly 20 Russian regions.

Racist attacks

The Kremlin introduced the National Unity Day in 2005 to replace the holiday marking the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. It commemorates Moscow's expulsion of Polish invaders in 1612.

But human rights groups have criticised the new holiday, saying it acts as a catalyst for the many racist organisations active in Russia.

The Moscow Human Rights Bureau has said that more than 100 people - mainly workers from the Central Asian states of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan - have died as a result of racist attacks in Russia this year.

Despite Russia's much improved economy and better living standards, xenophobic sentiments remain deeply rooted, the BBC's Russian affairs analyst Steven Eke says.

They are often reflected in openly expressed contempt for dark-skinned people, our correspondent says.