Greek left condemns police murder of youth
December 12, 2008
We, the organizations of the anticapitalist Left that sign this text, want to condemn the murder, in cold blood, of 16 year old Alexis Grigoropoulos by a police special guard in the evening of December 6th… Interview with a libertarian syndicalist
December 14, 2008
From ESE (Greece) An interview by the CNT-F with the International Secretary of the ESE (union of libertarian syndicalists), discussing the death of Alexis Grigoropoulos and the events that have followed. Interview with Yannis, international secretary of the ESE (Eleftheriaki Sindikalistiki Enosi)…
Last night, I met a friend of Alexandros’ who was sitting close to him when he was assassinated. Standing there silently, listening to him describe the moments of the assassination (for the n-th time I imagine) I couldn’t help but think: How many years did this kid grow over these seven days? Listening to him explain exactly how the cop is now attempting to cover up the story, how the ricocheting scenario can’t possibly stand… Seeing him argue how we need to change our tactics to take our struggle forward. Joking with us about the incapacity of the indymedia servers to hold the incoming traffic in the first days of the revolt. How many years did he grow? I can’t help but think; they took 15 years from Alexandros, but years and years of life were transplanted into all of us who are here now. In these days of revolt, normalilty and normal time have been suspended – finally giving us ample time in which to live and grow. For this reason, as for a million others, there is simply no way back now: time can’t move backward, what we have lived cannot be unlived. “Remember this”, I heard the old man telling his grandson at the spontaneous mural for Alexandros at the spot of his assassination. “Remember that it is always authority killing the people, it is always the powerful who kill the powerless”. The kid will never forget this week, none of us will. This is the longest week of our lives.
Saturday, 5 pm. Four hours before a full week from the assassination. We are preparing to take the streets again. This night, too, is your night Alexandros.
Following on from the recent revelations regarding tricksy spies in Australia comes this story from Aotearoa/New Zealand concerning a bloke called Rob Gilchrist. Gilchrist was previously featured in a series of articles in April 2008, in which he was portrayed as being wily enough to out-smart Gavin Clark of private spook agency Thompson and Clark Investigations (TCIL). Eight months later, it appears that both Gavin and Rob were spooks.
Spooky.
Rob earned his pocket money keeping tabs on the following groups and campaigns (among others):
ANTI-BASES CAMPAIGN. Christchurch-based group “opposed to foreign military intelligence installations”, including the Deep Freeze base at Christchurch airport and intelligence stations at Tangimoana and Waihopai.
AUCKLAND ANIMAL ACTION. Small Auckland group that protests against battery-hen farming and other cruelty to animals.
BENEFICIARIES ACTION COLLECTIVE. 1990s’ group opposed to the then National government’s work-for-the-dole and other welfare policies.
GE-FREE NEW ZEALAND. Nationwide network of groups opposed to GE food and the release of GE plants and animals into the environment.
PEACE ACTION WELLINGTON. Wellington-based peace group which spearheaded Iraq War protests and opposes the arms industry.
GREENPEACE. The international environment and peace organisation.
PEOPLE’S MORATORIUM ENFORCEMENT AGENCY (GE FREE). A GE protest group opposed to release of GE crops.
SAVE ANIMALS FROM EXPLOITATION (SAFE). Animal welfare group that campaigns to prevent abuse of animals, including in circuses, battery-hen farming and factory farming of pigs.
SAVE HAPPY VALLEY. A climate change group campaigning to stop a new open-cast coal mine in the Happy Valley area of the West Coast.
WELLINGTON ANIMAL RIGHTS NETWORK. A small animal rights group campaigning against battery-hen farming and the use of animals in laboratory experiments.
In comments reported in the articles below, Rob now says he is “embarrassed and sorry for deceiving and hurting people he cares about”. Further, regarding the people he was paid to spy on for a decade, “I know they are good people trying to make a better world,” he told the Star-Times. He said he had felt “conflicted” for years. “I didn’t feel what I was doing was moral or right.” He’d got stuck in something he wasn’t proud of but found it hard to get out. Funnily enough, Rob’s ethical dilemma arose only after he was busted — by his girlfriend, by accident. The ‘difficulty’ Rob refers to is now compounded: he’ll have to find a real job.
Twenty-two-year-old Rochelle Rees got involved in politics as a schoolgirl, determined to do something about issues such as cruelty in battery hen farms.
Since then she has handed out leaflets, been arrested for locking herself to a shop selling clothing made with animal fur from China and made the news during this year’s election campaign for a cheeky “Google bomb” calling John Key “clueless”. In the past week she was filming, with permission, inside a meatworks to check for inhumane treatment of the cows and bulls.
A year ago Rees started a relationship with another animal welfare campaigner she’d known since she was at school. It was Rob Gilchrist. She moved to Christchurch to live with him. But something felt wrong. A few weeks ago, when he asked for help fixing his computer, she found out why.
The bourgeois media [@ndy Slackbastard—>The Iron Sheik—>”Ptoo!”] has been speculating on the myterious ways of teh anarchists. First Athens, then Thessaloniki, then Greece, then… Europe? How is it possible! What does it all mean?!?
ATHENS – As Greek riots continued for a sixth day yesterday with high school students hurling stones and fire bombs at police stations in Athens suburbs, there were signs the unrest was spreading to the rest of Europe…
Arsonists torched two cars outside a Greek consulate in southwestern France and scrawled slogans in support of the youth riots gripping Athens.
Eight residents were evacuated unharmed from the consulate building, in the city of Bordeaux, and a door was damaged in the blaze.
Police found graffiti on a wall opposite the consulate, and on a nearby garage door, reading “Support for the fires in Greece,” “Insurrection Everywhere” and “The Coming Insurrection”.
The latter slogan is the name of a 2007 book seized as evidence last month following the arrest of seven people who were charged with sabotaging French high-speed rail lines.
France’s Interior Ministry alleged the manifesto has inspired a network of potentially violent “ultra-left” anarchist groups.
With Europe sliding into what may be a painful recession, the unrest may prove a harbinger of things to come.
“A violent reaction comparable to what has happened in Greece is possible, if there’s some kind of spark to light the fire, such as a youth’s death,” warned Roberto d’Alimonte, professor of political science at Florence University.
In France, officials in Prime Minister Francois Fillon’s office said he was “following the situation carefully,” and President Nicolas Sarkozy told ruling party deputies to beware a revolt against falling living standards…
In the week prior to the Interior Ministry’s assignation of responsibility for the burned door and graffiti to the publication of a text titled The Coming Insurrection, the Interior Minister made a very similar denunciation, this time in order to justify a contemporary French Terror against nine anarchists — the Tarnac 9 — arrested in early November and accused of ‘terrorism’ (Use of French terrorism law on railroad saboteurs draws criticism, Celestine Bohlen/Bloomberg News, International Herald Tribune, December 4, 2008):
Government officials say the suspects are dangerous. Interior Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie described them on Nov. 11 as “ultra-leftists” who share a “total rejection of any democratic expression of political opinion, and an extremely violent tone.”
The suspects are mostly graduate students from middle-class families, aged 22 to 34. One of the two suspects still in custody, Julien Coupat, 34, is being charged with “directing a terrorist group,” said Isabelle Montagne, a spokeswoman for the Paris Prosecutor’s office.
She said the police believed he was the anonymous author of a 2007 book entitled “The Coming Insurrection,” which mixes an anarchist political philosophy with instructions on disrupting state symbols, like railroads.
The book’s implicit threats prompted the police to begin monitoring Coupat’s group in mid-2007, said Xavier Raufer, a professor of the Institute of Criminology in Paris.
Montagne said various objects, such as heavy cable cutters, climbing gear, screw cutters and leftist literature were found in the searches of the farmhouse at Tarnac…
Closer to home — and therefore to this Aussie Patriots’ P.T.B.A. heart — Paola Totaro reckons ‘YouTube, Facebook fan fallout over slain Greek teen’ (Sydney Morning Herald, December 12, 2008). Apparently — and contrary to the mountains of evidence to the contrary; remarked upon for at least the last decade or more — anarchist and other troublemakers only discovered teh Intertubes when Facebook and YouTube did. Mind you, Paola also writes “In Turkey, 12 [sic] protesters were reported to have painted the Greek consulate in the same colour red used on the Turkish flag”; alternatively, in the colour of blood. Which has symbolic resonance. Apparently.
In Germany, three journalists ask: What Unites the Stone-Throwing Black Bloc?, Florian Gathmann, Jan Grundmann and Philipp Wittrock, Spiegel Online, December 12, 2008. In summary: “They’re considered the militant spearheads of an international scene that is largely united by violence.” And the article proceeds along very much the same line: “real organization would contradict the very self-image of anarchists”; “each individual tends to fight his or her own battle against the state”; “the one thing that seems to unite these diffuse ideological fragments is a preference for the prefix ‘anti'”; “much as football hooligans like to travel to the World Cup for shows of strength, these political hooligans head to the annual G-8 meetings to battle with the host nation’s security forces”. On this final note, the hacks share a good deal in common with local hack Marxist theoretician Mick Armstrong, chief ideologist with Trotskyist groupusculeSocialist Alternative:
Australia, fortunately, has not previously been blighted by the sort of black bloc anarchist activities which [have] had such a disastrous impact on demonstrations in Europe. These people are simply provocateurs that open up protests to police repression. In Europe their ranks have been riddled by police agents and fascists.
What gave them a certain critical mass at the G20 was the presence of considerable numbers of anarchists from overseas. One of our members from New Zealand said he recognised at least 40 NZ anarchists. He knew at least 20 of them by name. There were also a considerable number of black [bloc] anarchists from Europe. We know of people from Sweden, Germany and England. These people are like football hooligans who travel the world looking for violence.
Surprisingly, recent coverage of the riots in Greece has failed to uncover the presence of the 40 Kiwi anarchists (fuelled by vast quantities of Epic Pale Ale, fush ‘n’ chups, and a love of rugger) who have master-minded the ultra-violence — but who knows what the future may bring?
Nikos Raptis, writing on the subject of ‘Greek Teenagers’ for ZNet (December 12), has a few ideas:
The conclusion drawn from the incidents of these six days in Greece : The uprising was in reality the uprising of the Greek teenagers. It was a Greek “intifada”. The “weapons” used by the teenagers in this “intifada” were their burning anger, their maturity, and predominately… Seville oranges, the traditional Greek student weapon against the police. Their targets were the police stations. The police stations, whose historical meaning was touched briefly in the above parenthesis.
What might one expect after the “intifada” of the Greek teenagers? The rightist government of Karamanlis (the nephew) is mortally wounded. The “socialists” have been so corrupt during their two decades-long governing of the country that the young Greeks are repelled by them. What the kids are looking towards, are: the anarchists, the Coalition, and the KKE. Also, to a lesser degree towards the Greens.
A year ago the Coalition’s voting power was a little above 3%. A few months ago it rose to almost 16%. Now it is back at about 9%. The KKE for years was constantly around 5%. Now it is close to 7%. The Greens seem to reach close to 3%. It is reasonable to expect that in the next elections the Left (Coalition, KKE, Greens) could achieve a total voting power of around 20% and even much more.
If the above estimates are correct, then the “intifada” of the Greek teenagers will give a hard time to the CIA analysts in Langley. These analysts initiated the 1967 dictatorship of the colonels. The result was that in 1974 the Communist Party was legal after decades of being outlawed. The murder of Alexis by a “copy” of a US “Rambo”-policeman that initiated the “intifada” of the Greek teenagers, could give birth to a new Left in Greece. Also, this is a very good opportunity for the Parecon vision to be promoted among the Greek teens. It seems that the Coalition has an affinity to the Parecon vision [?!?].
We shall see what happens. Let us hope that my estimate is correct.
Um… OK.
The following statement was issued by a group of Greek anarchists and anti-authoritarians in the southern suburbs of Athens. This is in the area (Ag. Dimitrios) where there has been a takeover of the local City Hall. The takeover, now in its second day, has received significant local support. Last night, a popular assembly was attended by over 300 people. The takeover has also been supported by a statement from the Association of Employees of the City Hall of Ag. Dimitrios and many of these employees are helping to guard the building from a police attack…
THE STATE MURDERS
The evening of Saturday December 6, 2008, a murderer pulled out his gun and executed in cold blood a citizen, Alexandros. What is most tragic about this murder is that the murderer, police officer by profession, killed a 16-year-old kid.
The incident occurred at Exarhia, at the intersection of Tzavella and Mesologgi Streets. At a place where any one of us could have been. At a place that could have been at any neighborhood. The eyewitnesses to the incident state that the murder was preceded by a simple verbal incident. But the Macho Greek Murderer could not stand the insult and pulled the gun. And he executed. In cold blood.
This murder is neither an accident nor an isolated incident. It is one more link in a endless series of murderous attacks of the various departments of the police. Let us not forget the murder of the Pakistani immigrant at Petrou Ralli Street(1), while he was waiting in line to apply for asylum (in a line that the state itself had told him to wait). Let us not forget that recently a woman was murdered in Leukimmi(2), from actions of the MAT(3) against the XYTA(4) establishment in their area. The list, unfortunately, is endless. Let us not forget the torture by police officers in police stations and prisons. Let us not forget the in effect murderous behavior of the instruments of order, with infinite chemicals [tear gas, etc.], flash and stun grenades, shootings, beatings, in every instance when people get out in the streets, during strikes, during student and local actions (it has not been very long since the police drowned the entire area around the KYT(5) of Argiroupoli and beat up mercilessly neighbors of ours). This is their function. Let us not delude ourselves. To beat up and murder so that their message gets through “we and the bosses are the
law, whoever resists will be beat up mercilessly, and then some.”
And who are their bosses? Is it maybe the stockholders of the banks? Is it maybe the stockholders of the chain stores? Is it the president of EBEA(6)? Is it maybe all those who demand more work from us, for less money and less security? Is it maybe all those who get rich charging interest while thousands despair? Is it maybe those who profiteer, both against us and the producers, with the prices they set in the supermarkets for basic goods? Is it maybe those who during the periods of fat cows make huge profits and when things get rough they lay off workers and cut wages? Well then, it is logical for the popular rage to be directed at them. They talk of material damages while there is one more death. If private property is the only thing that interests them, then those who rebel are justified. We must comprehend than when the horror doesn’t wake up consciences, then unfortunately the smell of burning is necessary.
In the midst of all this and the developing uprising, is it possible to not take a stand? Can we stand with those who always ask for “order and calm”? Who even during the [Nazi] occupation and the junta the only thing they wanted to do was to “mind their own business and live their lives”? Who always see “provocation” and “known unknowns”(7)? Who see conspiracies behind every social movement they don’t control, accustomed to being “leaders” behind closed doors? Let us not be deceived that every time the events concern the “strikers”, the “students”, the “youth”. These days it is the people who are in the streets, without “central administrations”, “instructors” or “enlightened vanguards”. The means used are decided freely by each participant in the insurrection. This concerns us as much as the residents of Exarhia, who faced with the so called “cat and mouse vendetta between anarchists and police”, took a stand. Over the weekend they were throwing flower pots from their balconies and demanded the removal of the MAT squads and the cessation of the use of chemicals [i.e. tear-gas]. They took a stand, they didn’t look the other way. They took a stand against state repression. All of us therefore must take a stand. We must counterpose in action our refusal to the imposition of the regime of terror and the police state.
NO STATE MURDER LEFT UNANSWERED
FREEDOM TO ALL THOSE ARRESTED
SILENCE IS COMPLICITY
Initiative of anarchists and anti-authoritarians from the southern suburbs
1. At an Immigration Office. Police attacked immigrants standing in line under the pretext of “maintaining order.” A 24-year old Pakistani was fatally injured. At least 14 others were injured.
2. During a demonstration against the local landfill police clubbed a 16-year old who was driving his motorcycle. He crashed into a 43-year old pregnant woman who died days later of head injuries.
3. Μονάδες Αποκαταστασης Ταξης , literally Units for the Restoration of Order. They are the Greek Police’s riot units
4. Χώροι Υγειονομικής Ταφής, literally Places for Sanitary Burial, aka the landfill.
5. Κέντρο Υπερυψηλής Τάσης, Super High Voltage Station
6. Εμπορικό και Βιομηχανικό Επιμελητήριο Αθηνών, Athens Chamber of Commerce and Industry
7. “γνωστοί άγνωστοι” Media, state and police reference to anarchists and other militant protesters. Implying that they are known to the police but are not arrested for unknown reasons. Similar to the phrase “usual suspects” but it refers specifically, and conspiratorially, to anarchists.
The Jew Controlled Media are at it. Again! Or so the straight-talkin’ Jew-hatin’ Newcastle real estate agent (and Australia First Party (NSW Inc.) candidate in this year’s local council elections) Nathan Clarke would presumably maintain. On Stormfront Down Under, Nathan pops his political strategist hat on top of his tinfoil helmet and mashes the following insight into his keyboard:
I can not believe so many people are taking the jew rags as gospel. There is more to the story than the jew rags say and there is a different perspective than the left. I would have thought that the people posting here would have been able to see through the news.
If you think revenge is wrong, well something has to happen. White people look week [sic] cause we accept everything. Saying therr [sic] are better ways to do it… what are the better ways than getting out in the public eye and showing solidarity??? Its no wonder we are on the back foot, we are scared of any bad publicity.
I got some news for you, the jews will always put a negitave [sic] slant on anything pro white so get used to it and get prepared for a negitave [sic] story about you, if your [sic] not prepares [sic] to be slammed in the media at the very least… then you have to really think are you REALLY committed to the cause?
THEY shave their heads, wear Southern Cross tattoos and drape everything – from their web pages and bedrooms to their rhetoric and their bodies – in the livery of Australian nationalism.
Meet the teens and young adults of the Southern Cross Soldiers: white, Australian and willing to violently defend “their” country.
“We are not racist, just patriots. Out to set it straight, there is only one ethnicity in Australia, Australian,” read a statement on all SCS MySpace club pages.
‘cept for the SCS main page, what got shut down when the shit hit the fan. (Cache here.) Also, loadsa personal pages gone all private ‘n’ stuff.
Their profile pages are littered with slogans such as “Aussie pride in my mind, Aussie blood is my kind” and “proud to be Australian”.
Photos show Caucasian teens drinking, posing and, in many cases, wearing black-hooded jumpers with “SCS” emblazoned on the front, “Aussie” stitched on one sleeve, “Pride” on the other.
Tyler Cassidy, the 15-year-old shot dead by police in Melbourne on Thursday, boasted of belonging to this group.
Victoria Police say they are aware of the SCS. Last month a self-described co-leader of Tyler’s Melbourne chapter said members included neo-Nazis and relatives of bikie gang members.
The group stood for “Aussies”, said the leader, known as Adds. “All these people that are coming over to our country that aren’t Aussies are trying to take it over. We’re just trying to put the word out that we don’t like it,” he said.
A friend of Tyler, Amelia, told The Sun-Herald the teen was caught up in the “wrong crowd”.
She said the anniversary of his father’s death had only been a week before the shooting.
“A lot of shit was going on and he was scared because he was only 15 and involved with alcohol, knives and f—ed-up people. He probably felt like he was alone and had no one.”
A fierce debate on ultra-right racist website Stormfront.org was sparked by Tyler’s shooting, with some writers criticising SCS for adopting US “gangsta” culture.
One contributor, Aryanne, said he had known Tyler. “He was a scrawny child who’s father had just died of cancer,” he wrote. “He was having an obvious psychotic episode and he was known to the Northcote police for having them.”
Several weeks ago I noticed new graffiti on street signs in the Melbourne suburb Northcote from an unknown group: the Saracen Soldiers. A block away from the most prominent graffiti two houses displayed nationalist flags in their front windows. It could have been coincidence or maybe a signalling game to establish psychological turf…
Since the tragic shooting death of 15 year old Tyler Cassidy, many newspapers are highlighting his membership of the racist white youth gang* called the Southern Cross Soldiers.
While it is very difficult to speculate on the role the SCS played in this tragedy, the Mark Dunn story in the Herald Sun does raise some serious issues. The most fascinating quote comes from one of Cassidy’s former friends…
I have no answers about the death of Tyler Cassidy, only questions:
* Why are there gangs of boys for whom the most meaningful thing in their lives is the chant “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oi! oi! oi!”?
* What can/should police do when confronted with a knife-wielding person threatening to kill them? Remember Ron Levi?
* What could make a 15 year old boy abscond from home, obtain a knife, and start screaming at police?
* Will we get the usual chorus from the usual wingnut suspects about “personal responsibility” for this death? Or does personal responsibility only apply to Aboriginal boys stealing bicycles in Redfern?
A boy is dead. We mourn. We ask why. I have no answers.
Brian Walters poses a few questions:
Dec 13th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Sometimes police must deal with violent people, and sometimes violence – even lethal violence – is the only option available. It will be a while before we know all the facts in relation to the death of this 15 year old child, whose protection was the responsibility of us all. Some things are clear.
Fatal shootings by the Victoria Police continue to significantly outnumber those in every other State of Australia put together. Nearly 50 citizens have been shot dead by Victoria Police in the past 20 years. We are witness to a major failure in training and culture by those whose task it is to protect us.
Calls for Tasers avoid the issue. A Taser is another piece of technology which avoids the most important policing skill – dealing with people. It is a false alternative to consider Tasers an alternative to firearms. Often they have been used to obtain compliance in circumstances where no lethal force could be justified. And over 100 people in the US have died from police use of Tasers.
It is only a few years since a policeman on highway patrol was shot dead with his own weapon in Launching Place. Carrying guns on routine duty does not make police safer. Many of the guns used in the underworld are police issue. We should follow the UK model of issuing firearms only to specially selected and trained officers for a purpose justifying their use, and not leave handguns as part of the everyday equipment for police.
Shortly after this boy died, and while his body was still warm, police hierarchy were in full spin mode, confidently putting forward the police version of events – even though this appears to be disputed by some witnesses. The ongoing investigation is already compromised as a result. This approach shows an unwillingness on the part of Victoria Police command to acknowledge that they have a serious problem.
If something good is to come from this tragedy, let it be a change in police training, culture, and operation, so as to make the Victorian community safe from police firearms.
According to Cam Smith, the organiser of FightdemBack, a group which fights race-hate groups in Australia, the Southern Cross Soldiers is mainly organised through MySpace and there are at least 1000 members in nine chapters across the country.
The gang is made up of mainly teenagers, but the leaders were aged in their mid-twenties and the group was set up through the internet after the Cronulla riots. “They are mainly young people and are organised extensively through MySpace,” Mr Smith said. “It is a post-Cronulla thing. A lot of people who had been inspired by Cronulla have connected through the internet.”
Mr Smith said the Southern Cross Soldiers first came across the radar in January. “They are a gang whose activities are mainly limited to fights with other groups and occasionally picking on the random minority in the street,” Mr Smith said.
“A number of them are fairly hard-core neo-Nazis. The rest of them are fairly hard-core racists. They are interested in racial purity in Australia.”
A spokesman for anti-racist monitoring group Fight Dem Back, Cam Smith, said the group, made up of under-age teenagers, had a propensity to get into fights with other gangs.
“As I stated on the Bombshell forum Andy, you are a liar, a hypocrite and no better than the trash that you fight against.” ~ Dion, December, 2007
Yeah well, at least I haven’t decapitated someone, emailed a Russian human rights organisation with a photograph of the severed head, and given directions as to its location: a dumpster.
Still, you’ve got to laugh, don’t you? I mean, this shit’s pretty funny, yeah? And the people who fight this shit — well, they’re little better than the people who commit such acts, aren’t they?
The severed head of a Tajik man murdered last week in an apparent hate crime was discovered in a dumpster in western Moscow, investigators said Thursday.
In a disturbing twist, an obscure ultranationalist group claimed responsibility for the slaying by e-mailing a photograph of the victim’s detached head to two human rights organizations, the groups said Thursday.
The victim’s head was discovered wrapped in a plastic bag in a dumpster Wednesday on Ulitsa Tolbukhina, near Kuntsevskaya metro station on the Moscow western outskirts, the Investigative Committee said in a statement.
An autopsy confirmed that the head belonged to a 20-year-old native of Tajikistan whose decapitated body was discovered last week near the village of Zhabkino, a few kilometers south of Moscow, the statement said.
The victim and a fellow Tajik worker at a local food warehouse were walking home last Friday evening when they were attacked by about 10 men, who shot them with pellet guns and proceeded to beat them, according to investigators.
The murder victim died at the scene, having been stabbed in the torso six times before he was beheaded, investigators said. The other Tajik worker managed to escape and was subsequently hospitalized in critical condition.
A police source identified the murder victim only by his last name, Azizov, Interfax reported. Repeated calls to the Tajik Embassy in Moscow went unanswered Thursday afternoon.
The chiefs of the only two nongovernmental organizations tracking hate crimes in Russia said Thursday that they had received an e-mail this week from a previously unknown ultranationalist group claiming responsibility for the slaying.
The e-mail, from a group calling itself the Militant Organization of Russian Nationalists, attached a digital photograph showing the victim’s head resting on a wooden chopping block, said Galina Kozhevnikova, head of the Sova Center xenophobia watchdog.
“The message said that with this beheading, the group is demonstrating its resolve to further fight against occupiers,” Kozhevnikova said. “They also said the same fate awaits officials who would hamper their fight.”
The message, sent from a cell phone, said the head would be dumped near the Mozhaisky District administration building, Kozhevnikova said, adding that she went straight to police after receiving the e-mail.
The district has been a lightning rod for ultranationalist rage in recent months after the rape and murder of 15-year-old Anna Beshnova there two months ago — a crime for which an Uzbek city maintenance worker has been charged.
Ultranationalists have held unsanctioned rallies in the district calling for migrant workers to be expelled from the country, prompting dozens of migrants to quit their jobs with the city over fears for their safety.
Two other organizations were copied on the e-mail, Kozhevnikova said: the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights, the only NGO other than Sova tracking hate crimes in Russia, and the daily tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda.
Alexander Brod, head of the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights and a member of the Public Chamber, confirmed to Interfax on Thursday that he had received the e-mail. He declined to comment when reached by telephone.
Two people reached by telephone at the Komsomolskaya Pravda editorial office said they did not know of the newspaper receiving the e-mail.
A police source told Interfax that a nationalist web site posted a video of the murder. An exhaustive Internet search Thursday failed to find such a file or any earlier references to the Militant Organization of Russian Nationalists. Kozhevnikova of Sova suggested that it may be a nonexistent group.
The purported footage of the killing recalls a horrifying video distributed on the Internet last year showing the murder of two dark-skinned men.
The video, which appeared on ultranationalist web sites under the title “The Execution of a Tajik and a Dagestani,” showed the victims kneeling, bound and gagged in front of a Nazi flag. Masked men saw one man’s head off with a large knife and shoot the other.
A Dagestani family later identified one of the victims as their relative.
A student in the southern republic of Adygeya was convicted and sentenced to one year in prison last year for inciting ethnic hatred by posting the three-minute video on his LiveJournal blog. The killers remain at large.
Staff Writer Alexandra Odynova contributed to this report.
In November 2008, not less than 18 people, including 3 fatalities, became victims of racist and neo-nazi violence in Russia. Beside Moscow, the crimes were reported in St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Penza and Kaliningrad. For comparison, in November 2007, we recorded 70 victims, including 4 fatalities.
In total, since the beginning of 2008, not less than 82 people died and 348 were injured. In the same time period in 2007, 75 people died and 563 were injured. The considerable growth of the number of deaths lets us presume that the real number of injured people is higher than the one we have recorded, because many of the non-fatal violent hate crimes go underreported.
Beside Moscow region (48 killed and 167 injured people) and St. Petersburg region (15 killed and 34 injured people), attacks were reported in 37 regions of Russia, including Voronezh (2 killed, 17 injured), Yekaterinburg (4 killed, 14 injured) and Nizhny Novgorod (2 killed, 12 injured).
People coming from the Central Asia form, as before, the group of the most frequent victims of hate crimes: in 2008, there are 46 killed and 94 injured people…
As alluded to earlier, the police shooting of 15-year-old Tyler Cassidy in the Melbourne suburb of Northcote last night (Thursday, December 11) has particular significance at FDB: Tyler was a member of the racist youth network Southern Cross Soldiers (SCS).
The SCS initially came to the media’s attention in November, when Liam Houlihan published an article in the November 23 edition of the Sunday Herald Sun: Victorian police vow crackdown to stop ‘another Cronulla’. The slackbastard blog provides some additional commentary, and a number of SCS members were moved to denounce the article, S.C.S Melb Leader commenting:
The pro-Cronulla riot videos released onto youtube then added to our myspace had more than just racism about them, they showed a whole army of my fellow countrymen and women standing up for themselves, for something they believe in, and most importantly standing up for there country. They were not put there to glorify the cronulla riots in any way, just merely a well compiled video of plenty of aussies and australian flags, that really caught my eye and made me feel good
In keeping with the Cronulla tradition, the previous weekend — the third anniversary of the Cronulla riot — the Melbourne chapter of the group held a party.
I wonder if SCS will be calling on the talents of their media spokesperson Adds, or legal eagle Gazza?
Also for the curious : Tyler’s myspace page: TYLERS [S.C.S] P.T.B.A heart is screaming with pride…
THE following are the events leading to the fatal shooting of 15-year-old Tyler Cassidy in Melbourne on Thursday night:
7.00pm-8.30pm (AEDT)
* Tyler Cassidy is involved in a fight at family home in Northcote, and takes two knives but family members disarm him.
* Tyler leaves the house angry and upset and goes to Northcote Plaza shopping centre. He goes into K-Mart store and steals two knives, according to a witness. He slashed boxes as he left armed with the knives. Police are contacted.
9.30pm
* Tyler is seen behaving irrationally with the knives in the centre carpark and goes to All Nations Park next to the shopping centre. More calls to police are made.
* Four police officers – two males and two females – arrive and try to negotiate with the boy.
* He approaches officers so they deploy capsicum spray, but it does not subdue him.
* Tyler urges police to kill him or he will kill them. He approaches one officer and a warning shot is fired. He ignores demands to back off and three of the four officers fire, killing him.
AAP
Statement from the family of Tyler Cassidy about his shooting death
The entire family and friends of Tyler Cassidy are appalled at the actions by the Victoria Police last night.
Their heavy-handedness, and lack of negotiating skills at the scene of the shooting, contributed to the untimely death of our beautiful 15 year old.
He was in the prime of his life, had just started a new school, and was coping really well. He was a popular student with high expectations and a good network of friends.
The Northcote police were notified 30 minutes prior to the killing and briefed completely on what had happened including what he was wearing and to look out for Tyler.
The four officers concerned acted unacceptably by killing Tyler last night. He had a very gentle side, striving to grow from a boy into a young man and would have been completely overwhelmed by the situation.
The police according to our witnesses chased him, cornered him at the skate park in Northcote, he was surrounded and gunned down by four officers firing at least six or seven shots.
Our eyewitness confirmed that Tyler patted her dog, was confronted by the police and sprayed with capsicum foam, then pursued to the skate park, surrounded and hunted down.
We look forward to a serious and thorough investigation and inquest into why Tyler was killed and to the serious nature of the attending officers’ actions.
It should have been dealt with differently and more compassionately, but tragically resulted in Tyler’s death that should have been avoided.
“I promise you my darling, I will fight for you as you were taken from me under the most horrific circumstances.
“Why was he slayed to death when it was so unnecessary. Four officers were not capable of managing the situation.
“Now you have passed over I will speak for you and others like you,” Shani, Tyler’s mother
This is a released statement on behalf of his loving family and friends. He died alone without his family at his side, gasping his last breath, he was only a scared little boy… Rest in Peace. 12/12/2008
Two Greek anarchists are making molotov cocktails. One says to the other: "So who will we throw these at then?" The other replies: "What are you, some kind of fucking intellectual?"
