A court in Moscow has extended the arrest of the 21-year-old Tajik national Amirsho Huseinov, who was detained over the brawl with Nazi skinheads, for two months.  “He is accused of hooliganism,” Tajik Ambassador to Russia Imomuddin Sattorov told Asia-Plus in an interview.

According to Sattorov, the Embassy offered him a lawyer but Amirsho’s relatives hired another defense lawyer.    

“We tracking the case and keeping it under control.  The Tajik diplomatic mission demanded an objective and transparent investigation of the incident in its note sent to the Russian Foreign Ministry,” the ambassador said.  

According to him, Amirsho Huseinov is a native of the city of Panjakent in the Tajik northern province of Sughd.  

“The law enforcement agencies are currently looking for other participants in the brawl,” Sattorov added.  

Recall, the incident took place in Moscow in the evening of June 23.  

According to eyewitnesses, a group of Nazi skinheads were walking down Tolbukhin Street in the evening of June 23 chanting xenophobic slogans “Russia for Russians, Moscow for Muscovites” and shouting insults at people of other ethnicities.

A brawl started between the skinheads and Dagestanis and a citizen of Tajikistan.  Several people, including Amirsho Huseinov, were detained by police.  

Russian known human rights activist Valentina Chupik wrote in Facebook group “We Migrants” that a group of Nazi skinheads staged a procession on the Tolbukhin Street in the evening of June 23 chanting xenophobic slogans “Russia for Russians, Moscow for Muscovites.”

A group of Dagestanis and the 21-year-old native of Tajikistan Amirsho Huseinov did not like this.  A dispute began between them and the skinheads and the skinheads’ leader invited one of his rivals to fight him one-on-one.  In this fight, the skinheads’ leader was beaten and asked for mercy.  Seeing that their leader is defeated, the skinheads attacked the "non-Russians” by the whole crowd. 

Chupik wrote that the skinheads were soon released, and criminal proceedings were instituted under the provisions of Article 213 of Russia/s Penal Code (hooliganism) against those who opposed Nazism.

Racism in Russia appears mainly in the form of negative attitudes and actions by some Russians toward people who are not ethnically Russian.  Traditionally, Russian racism includes anti-Semitism and Tatarophobia, as well as hostility towards various ethnicities of the Caucasus, Central Asia, East Asia and Africa.   

Experts note that there are large numbers of skinheads in Russia, responsible for a significant number of xenophobic attacks, including killings.