Russian ultra-nationalists rally as police watch

MOSCOW, Jan 29 (Reuters) Russian ultra-nationalists yesterday chanted ''Glory to Russia!'' and waved banners reading ''Jewish fascism! There is nothing scarier!'' in a sanctioned rally condemned by human rights campaigners as racist.

About 200 activists and skinheads in black leather jackets and heavy boots gave Nazi-style salutes as organisers yelled nationalist slogans from a makeshift stage at one of Moscow's central squares.

''Comrades! We are here to protect the people of Russia. This is our last frontier,'' Dmitry Rogozin, a nationalist politician, told a cheering crowd as dozens of riot police looked on.

Similar protests were held in St Petersburg and other cities.

The rally rekindled memories of a 2005 protest when neo-Nazis were allowed to parade through Moscow yelling racist slogans. Last year, riot police foiled an attempt to hold a banned nationalist march and arrested dozens of activists.

Human rights campaigners condemned the rally's organisers -- the Russian March movement -- for using racist slogans and inciting hatred for dark-skinned foreigners, saying rallies like this are part of a nationwide surge in racism.

''Russian March is a form of chauvinism and militant xenophobia,'' Alexander Brod, head of the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights, told Ekho Moskvy radio station.

Police said they had given the green light to hold the rally as they saw nothing racist in its official agenda: to demand the release of officers accused of killing civilians in Chechnya and other officials far-right groups see as political prisoners.

Protesters mixed their dislike for dark-skinned migrants with what one activist described as ''the Zionist regime of oligarchs and criminals''.

''We want political freedoms, democracy, free media, all those things everybody else wants,'' said Igor Tomilov, one of the rally's organisers. ''We don't have those things in Russia because everything is controlled by Zionists.'' At Triumfalnaya square, Russian and nationalist black-and-yellow flags flapped in the wind and militant songs blared from loudspeakers for about two hours. Ordinary Russians passing around the cordoned-off square seemed bewildered.

''What a bunch of freaks,'' said Yelena, a housewife holding her little daughter by the hand. ''They should go and do something worthy instead of wasting everyone's time.'' Reuters DH VP0435