This book is a collection of the 2004 2005 and 2006 annual reports as well as some additional
statistics on 2007 compiled by Moscow's SOVA Center for Information and Analysis. The reports
are devoted to such issues as political nationalism hate crimes the use of police
administrative political and social tools to counteract xenophobic violence and the Russian
authorities' abuse of laws designed to counteract extremism i.e. their cynical exploitation of
this legislation for their own political purposes. Already in the middle of this decade all of
these problems were known to pose a certain threat to Russian society. In spite of the
considerable public attention they received since then only few effective measures have been
taken and thus the situation is getting worse: The level of racist violence is increasing
further and the spectrum of ultra-nationalist groups is consolidating. Moreover
representatives of the political elite have started to adopt cryptic and sometimes overtly
xenophobic rhetoric. At the same time the government's current office holders actively utilize
anti-extremist legislation to unlawfully restrict not only ultra-nationalist groups but also
the rights and liberties of other non-governmental and political organizations.
