Thanks to Vlad Tupikin for this. You can see his photo reportage from the Berlin action in memory of Silvio Meier here.
Vlad writes that 3,000 people attended the Saturday demo in Berlin. Typically, the Moscow authorities forbid a memorial march for the murdered antifascist Ivan Khutorskoi planned for Sunday after allegedly consenting to it. Instead, the much smaller group of demonstrators resorted to placing carnations on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, next to the Kremlin. (See the excellent photo reportage by blogger keltea here.) Later in the day, a group of about forty anarchists and antifascists held their own unsanctioned march in central Moscow (photos here).
Today, November 21, 2009, we honor the memory of Silvio Meier and other people who have perished at the hands of the Nazis.
Unfortunately, in Russia we also have good reason to remember the victims of fascist violence in November. Four years ago, on November 13, 2005, our friend and comrade the antifascist Timur Kacharava was murdered in Petersburg. This past Monday, November 16, 2009, the antifascist Ivan Khutorskoi was murdered in Moscow. Over the past three and half years, a total of seven antifascists have been murdered in Moscow.
But the antifascist movement is also growing. Because they can no longer risk open confrontations with the antifa, the Nazis have switched to cowardly murders on the sly, to shooting their victims in the back of the head.
Recently, the Russian president Dmitry Medvedev reported to the German magazine Spiegel about the solving of the murders of the antifascist lawyer Stanislav Markelov and the antifascist journalist Anastasia Baburova. Yes, specific Nazi murderers were apprehended. Yes, over the past year the authorities have intensified their fight against Nazi gangs. But the number of murders committed by Nazis (that is, those that we know about and could thus count) has practically not decreased. There were around one hundred such incidents in 2008, and approximately eighty in the first ten months of 2009.
We should not forget, however, that over the past years the state authorities and state propaganda in Russia have done much to incite xenophobia and nationalism and thus strengthen the Nazi camp.
We must not forget that at various times four major Nazi organizations have enjoyed the direct patronage of the authorities: Russian National Unity (RNE); the National-Socialist Society (NSO); the Movement Against Illegal Immigration (DPNI); and now Russkiy Obraz (Russian Way). The two people arrested on November 4 for the murders of Markelov and Baburova are members of this organization. That is why, in response to the murder of antifascist Ivan Khutorskoi, Moscow antifa attacked the headquarters of Young Russia, a puppet pro-Kremlin youth organization that provides “protection” for Russkiy Obraz.
As we can see, the Nazi terror in Russia continues.
And that is why we must continue to pressure the Russian government to end its support for Nazi front organizations, to end its nationalist propaganda, and to engage seriously in the capture of Nazi murderers.
We need to remember this not only on days like today, but on those days when Russian leaders come here to do their financial deals with Germany, when they come here to open art shows and film festivals and try in general to present Russia as a normal democratic country. Don’t believe them! Remind them about the unsolved fascist murders in Russia, about the Nazi terror that continues in our country.
Long live the international solidarity of antifascists!
The Antifascists of MoscowNovember 21, 2009, 3:00 p.m.
Berlin, U-Bahn Samariterstrasse
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