A/HRC/4/19/Add.3 page 23 witnesses and other participants in criminal investigations and trials. Two years later, in May 2006, a special operation led to the arrest of several members of an extremist gang suspected of committing attacks and murders on nationalistic motives, including that of Mr. Guirenko. 68. Two young anti-fascist activists and students, Timur Kacharava and Alexander Ryukhin, were likewise assassinated on 13 November 2005 and 16 April 2006 respectively. IV. ANALYSIS AND ASSESSMENT OF THE SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR 69. After having collected and analysed the views and information provided by all parties concerned, the Special Rapporteur reached the conclusion that, while there is no State policy of racism in the Russian Federation, the Russian society is facing a profound trend of racism and xenophobia. 70. In the view of the Special Rapporteur, the most striking manifestations of this trend are the following: the increasing number of racially motivated crimes and attacks, including by neo-Nazi groups, particularly against people of non-Slav appearance originating from the Caucasus, Africa, Asia or the Arab world; the growing level of violence with which some of these attacks are carried out, resulting in some cases in the death of the victim; the extension of this violence to human rights defenders, intellectuals and students engaged in the combat against racism; the climate of relative impunity that the perpetrators of such acts enjoy from law enforcement agents, despite a substantial increase, in recent months, of prosecutions and convictions for acts including racial hatred or enmity as a motivating factor; the rise of anti-Semitism as well as other forms of religious intolerance, in particular against Muslims; the existence and the increasing importance of political parties with racist and xenophobic platforms; and last but not least, the virtual correspondence of the social, economic and political marginalization with the mapping of ethnic minorities and other discriminated groups. 71. Racism, xenophobia and discrimination in the Russian society are of a profoundly historical and cultural nature, as illustrated by pogroms, deportation and displacement of entire communities, particularly against Jews and members of other ethnic minorities, which date back to the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. Even if modern forms of islamophobia are related to post-Soviet political independence developments in the Caucasus, particularly in Chechnya, Islam, as other non-Orthodox religions and spiritual practices, were long persecuted and repressed in the Soviet Union. 72. Present manifestations of racism, discrimination and xenophobia being faced in violent forms by non-European minorities and foreigners from Africa, Asia and the Arab world, are revitalized by an ideological void resulting from the shift of ideology from the “friendship amongst peoples” of the Soviet Union, which officially repressed manifestations of racism, racial discrimination and xenophobia, to the nationalist ideology of the Russian Federation. In itself, however, the ideology of “friendship amongst peoples” was to a certain extent a “mask” under which authorities not only did not hamper the existence of inter-ethnic tensions throughout the Soviet Union, but also conducted deportations of entire communities and fostered anti-Semitic feelings.