Russian President Dmitry Medvedev instructed police to punish the perpetrators of a recent anti-ethnic riot in the capital, which he named as a threat to national security.
"The recent events in Moscow...should be classified as a crime, and those that committed them should be punished," Medvedev said at meeting with the head of the Investigative Committee, the Prosecutor General and the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
"Acts aimed at inciting racial, national or religious hatred...threaten the stability of the state," he added.
Around 5,000 football supporters and nationalists gathered on Manezh Square in central Moscow on Saturday to protest the death of Yegor Sviridov, a Spartak Moscow fan who died earlier in December in a fight between football fans and migrants from Russia's mainly Muslim North Caucasus region.
MOSCOW, December 13 (RIA Novosti)
