MOSCOW, October 15 (RIA Novosti) – A vegetable warehouse in a Moscow suburb, one of the main targets of anti-migrant rioters during a night of violent clashes in the area, is closed for five days, a consumer watchdog official said on Monday.
A deputy head of Moscow’s department of consumer rights watchdog Rospotrebnadzor, Yelena Ignatova, said an unscheduled inspection has already revealed numerous sanitary violations in the facility.
The head of Moscow’s Southern Administrative District, Georgy Smoleyevsky, said the authorities want to shut the base down and have no plans to reopen it at another location.
“It is to be closed by a court ruling, Rospotrebnadzor is going to request [the court] about it,” he said,
Helicopters and over a thousand police officers were dispatched to Biryulyovo in Moscow’s Southern District on Sunday afternoon as crowds began attacking police lines and local businesses, including the vegetable warehouse, after a young Russian man was knifed to death last week by a suspect believed to be non-Russian.
The Health Ministry said that 23 people sought medical help, and police said that six riot police officers were injured in the skirmishes, and two have been hospitalized.
Police said late Monday morning that 308 of the 380 detained during overnight disturbances would be released without charge, 70 will face administrative charges and be required to appear in court, and two will be detained for 48 hours on criminal charges. It was unclear what charges, if any, those detained in the vegetable warehouse would face.
A court sentenced 15 people to fines ranging between 500 rubles ($15.5) and 5,000 rubles ($155). Cases of other detainees are yet to be heard.
The Russian Public Chamber’s working group, tasked with calming down the situation, will hold its first working meeting on Tuesday.
In recent years Russia has seen a series of violent protests in reaction to crimes allegedly committed by people from ethnic minorities. Such protests, often aimed at people from the Caucasus region, are motivated by what the protestors perceive as the authorities’ inability, or unwillingness, to hold the perpetrators to account.
