05 April 2010, 21:00
In Moscow metro, unidentified persons made inscriptions "Allah Akbar!" and "Death to Russians!"
Inscriptions "Allah Akbar!" and "Death to Russians!" appeared on the wall of the metro station "Planernaya" in Moscow. Now, the power agencies of the capital try to find the authors of this graffiti, who, according to eyewitnesses, were natives of the Caucasus.
A woman called to the militia and said that she saw young men in the "Planernaya", who were writing these words on the wall with pressurized paint bottles.
After committing their crime, the youngsters disappeared in a silvery foreign-made car; militiamen could not detain them. The search of graffiti authors is difficult, because the lobby of this metro station has no video surveillance cameras, the "Interfax" reports.
Foreign media write that in the context of recent terror acts Russia sees a growth of xenophobic moods and fear both of the people arriving from the Caucasus and of Moslems. Thus, as reported by the "NEWSru.com" with reference to the Swiss newspaper "Tribune de Geneve", militiamen stop and check only Russians of Caucasian origin, "easy to identify by darker skin, dense hair and eyebrows, and headscarves on women."
The Caucasian type of appearance becomes equivalent to accusation of committing a crime, and Moslems and natives of the Caucasus are afraid to become victims of xenophobia, writes another Swiss newspaper - "Le Temps". One of parishioners of the Moscow mosque located in Zamoskvorechye said that he is afraid to let his wife out into the streets, as she wears a headscarf. "It seems to me that everyone is gazing at her," said the man.
In this situation, as the paper writes, ultranationalist movements are becoming especially active, making use of the situation and people's fears in their aims. The situation is aggravated by Russian media, which "bring down in one heap" Moslems and terrorists, believes Islam, an imam of the Moscow Cathedral Mosque.
At this background, the transport militia is conducting the 100-percent examination of the passengers arriving from and leaving for the North-Caucasian region.
Simultaneously, the Russian authorities called to avoid henceforth using expressions of the type "natives from the Caucasus, who came to Russia", as such statements, in their opinion, create ground for split in the country. On April 1, at the meeting in Makhachkala, Dmitri Medvedev called mass media not to bring split into society, when covering terror acts and their consequences.