Paul Goble
Vienna, March 25 – The International Union for Assistance to Migrant Workers announced over the weekend that its members will form “self-defense” units to defend themselves against attack if what they described as “fascist” tendencies in Russia intensify over the coming months.
The union, led by Islamic Committee chairman Geydar Dzhemal’, held a regional constituent congress in St. Petersburg on Saturday. Organizers stressed that they plan to recruit and defend both workers from former Soviet republics as well as from non-Russian regions of the Russian Federation (www.zaks.ru/new/archive/view/55087).
At the session, Dzhemal said that “we will create such conditions in which such fascist measures as deportation will be impossible,” adding that he did not exclude that “if fascist tendencies in Russia cross a definite line,” then, in the words of one report, “the Union will create self-defense ...