MOSCOW, July 1 (RIA Novosti) - Suspected members of an extremist group that is thought to have targeted foreigners have been detained in Bashkortostan (a Russian republic in the south of Urals), the republic's interior minister said Friday.
Rafail Divayev said the group of skinheads included several young teenagers. The suspects were in possession of extremist literature when they were arrested.
"An investigation revealed that the members of the group had assaulted foreign citizens from Africa and Asia, including from Angola and Vietnam," Divayev said.
When speaking at an interregional conference on interaction between law-enforcement bodies and human rights organizations, which was held on Friday in Ufa, the capital of Bashkortostan, the minister said that the problem of extremism among young people in multi-ethnic Bashkortostan had not assumed critical proportions, but he still called on human rights organizations to continue practical work to combat this evil.
