| As Moscow cleaned up the mess left
by rampaging soccer fans, the city
police took the heat Monday for
failing to foresee and avert the riot,
and opposition political parties
voiced fears that the Kremlin may use
the street violence as a pretext for
curbing civil liberties.
The death toll rose to two when a
policeman died of his injuries
Monday afternoon, Interfax reported.
A teenager was stabbed to death
during Sunday evening's riot, which
left 75 people injured, city authorities
said. Of the 49 people hospitalized, 18
were policemen.
Two foreign citizens -- an American of Indian descent and
a Chinese man -- were
severely beaten in the lobby of the Tverskaya metro
station, the city prosecutor's
office said. Both were taken to the Sklifosovsky emergency
hospital.
The center of Moscow turned into a battleground when about
8,000 soccer fans who
had gathered to watch a World Cup match on a giant screen
set up across the street
from the State Duma exploded in anger when it became clear
that Russia would lose to
Japan. Some fans began torching cars, smashing windows and
fighting police and each
other. In the end, 80 parked cars were destroyed and 227
shop windows and 45 glass
advertisement stands were broken as the mob moved up
Tverskaya Ulitsa.
About 1,000 municipal workers were deployed Monday to
repair the storefronts, and
city officials were collecting complaints from the owners
of damaged cars. City Hall
promised to cover all expenses, although Deputy Mayor
Valery Shantsev said anyone
found guilty of causing the damage would have to reimburse
the city.
The city prosecutor's office said 113 people were arrested
Sunday, and 15 of them are
accused of setting cars on fire and breaking windows.
"It is serious criminal offense punishable by eight years
in prison," Deputy Interior
Minister Vitaly Mozyakov said in televised remarks. "We
will do everything to find as
many participants of the disturbances as possible, and
they all will be held criminally
responsible."
Although many, including Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov,
said they believed the
violence was planned, both Mozyakov and a spokeswoman for
the city prosecutor's
office said they had no information that the riot was
organized or that extremist groups
were involved.
"We will check the identities of the detained individuals
and their membership in
extremist organizations," said prosecutor's office
spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko.
"As of now, we can't say that the riot was organized."
But Sergei Fomchenkov, one of the leaders of the National
Bolshevik Party, known for
its own controversial and violent escapades, said it had
all the signs of an organized
action.
"The fact that the rampage erupted and spread very rapidly
indicates that it was
organized," Fomchenkov said. "A dozen men with the means
to set fire to cars and
tools to smash windows are enough to trigger such a riot.
And actions such as quickly
setting fire to a car require specific knowledge."
The television footage from Manezh Square showed young men
brandishing blazing
thermite signal flares that could be used to torch cars,
he said.
Fomchenkov said his party was not involved in Sunday's
unrest and he doubted other
radical political parties were involved either, because of
the lack of political slogans.
The fans mainly shouted, "Rossia, Rossia."
"It could be radical fans or their skinhead friends, who
could have been urged on by
the Russian secret services," he said. "I know for certain
that the Federal Security
Service has close ties to leaders of fan groups."
Fomchenkov lamented that the riot will have a negative
impact on the activity of radical
parties because it will allow the Kremlin to win public
support for its law on extremism,
which is now being pushed through the State Duma and will
give the authorities more
power to pounce upon the opposition.
Alexander Ivanov-Sukharevsky, the head of the Russia's
most radical ultra-rightist
group, the National People's Party, expressed the same
concern.
"The series of recent racially and ethnically motivated
attacks in Russia may not be a
pattern of conspiracy by the Kremlin, but it uses them as
a pretext to consolidate
people around the authorities and definitely will use this
riot to extend its influence in
the public consciousness," he said.
But not only marginal political groups fear a possible
crackdown after the riot; major
opposition parties also expressed their worries.
Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov called the Sunday
rampage "a well-planned
provocation," aimed at pushing the law on extremism
through parliament.
The Kremlin bill, however, has all the support it needs
already. It passed in its first
reading last week with a vote of 271 to 141. The
Communists unanimously voted
against it.
Sergei Mitrokhin, a lawmaker from the Yabloko faction who
also opposed the bill, said
he believes the riot will be used to curb civil liberties.
"The restoration of order will be done the traditional
Russian way -- by suppressing
citizens' rights -- and not by revising the work of the
law enforcers," he said Monday.
"Everywhere in the world, the police monitor extremist
groups through informers, while
our policemen feebly ask people to share their video
footage of the riot to help them
identify the hooligans."
Mitrokhin, who witnessed the fans' outrage, said that when
riot police officers arrived
at the scene the hooligans dispersed immediately.
"If they had come half an hour earlier, there would have
been no riot at all," he said.
"And when I called on the police patrols that were hiding
from the fans on the side
streets to intervene, they told me it wasn't their task or
that they had no order from
their superiors."
Throughout the day, one political leader after another
blamed the Moscow city
government and police for failing to foresee the violence
or respond to it adequately.
Putin, however, made no public comments on the riot Monday.
Duma Speaker Gennady Seleznyov, Dmitry Rogozin, the head
of the Duma's
international affairs committee, and presidential aide
Sergei Yastrzhembsky accused
City Hall of failing to predict the violent behavior of
drunken teenagers and permitting
the free trade of alcohol near the screening site,
Interfax said.
Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov said the riot
showed the ineffectiveness of
Moscow police, Interfax reported.
The ROMIR polling agency interviewed 500 Muscovites on
Monday and 40 percent of
them, the largest share, also put the blame on city
police. The rest of the blame was
shared among city authorities (17 percent), the fans (15
percent) and even the Russian
soccer team (2 percent), presumably for losing.
Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov flew to Moscow from St.
Petersburg to meet Moscow
police chief Vladimir Pronin on Sunday night and he
ordered an internal investigation
into the police actions.
On Monday morning, Pronin sent in his resignation to
Gryzlov but the minister refused
to accept it, Interfax reported. Instead, Gryzlov accepted
the resignation of Pronin's
deputy, Major General Vasily Chemisov, who was the officer
in charge of the city
Sunday.
"I believe this man has assessed his actions himself,"
Gryzlov was quoted as saying.
He said that actions of other police officers will be
investigated and they will be
punished accordingly.
The City Duma and the State Duma security committee will
have meetings Tuesday to
look at the reasons behind the riot. "The web sites of
soccer fans are literally stuffed
with information about similar actions being prepared in
other Russian regions," said
Yury Shchekochikhin, a member of the security committee,
Interfax reported. "I believe
we will have two or three similar riots in Russian country
towns this summer."
Whether Moscow authorities continue the public screening
of the World Cup's finals
will be decided in the next two days, Shantsev told
Interfax.
"It will not be an easy decision. If the next game is not
transmitted, we will give this
scum a chance to defeat us," he was quoted as saying.
The Russian soccer team plays Belgium on Friday.
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