A/HRC/4/19/Add.3 page 16 North Africa, from the Asia and Pacific region, as well as other people of non-Slav appearance. Jews and members of other religious groups, human rights defenders and members of youth groups would also be victims of such violence. While most attacks took place in Moscow and St. Petersburg, incidents have been registered in several other cities and regions, including Voronezh, Nizhni Novgorod, Rostov-on-Don and Volgograd. 42. Several developments within the skinhead movement give rise to increasing concern among civil society organizations: first, their successful penetration into the youth groups of the main Russian cities; second, the fact that the average skinhead profile is no longer that of a socially disadvantaged and uneducated youth, but rather a teenager - increasingly often a minor from a middle-class family and with secondary, higher or technical education; third, the increasing association between skinhead groups and ultranationalist parties, such as the People’s National Party, the National Sovereign Party or the Freedom Party; and fourth, the increasing attacks committed against Russians, particularly human rights defenders. C. Exploitation of the racist and xenophobic discourse in politics and the media 43. Civil society organizations expressed particular concern at the development of a culture of nationalism, intolerance and xenophobia within Russian society. Reference was made, as an illustration, to two recent opinion polls, which respectively indicated that 53 per cent of respondents supported the slogan “Russia for the Russians” and that 42 per cent would support a decision to “deport representatives of certain ethnic groups” from their region.13 44. While these feelings are considered to have deep roots, they also need to be analysed in a context where the fall of the political and economic system of the Soviet Union and the economic and social crisis that affects the country have been felt by an important sector of the Russian population as a national defeat, leading to enormous frustration and to a rise of nationalism. Two main factors contribute to their exacerbation: the use of racism and xenophobia as an electoral resource and the role of the media in the dissemination of racist and xenophobic materials. 45. The Special Rapporteur was informed about the growing influence of parties with racist or xenophobic platforms, which adopt an openly discriminatory discourse, founded upon a security approach towards immigration and asylum and upon negative stereotypes and prejudices against certain communities. Several political organizations, including parties with representation in Parliament, such as Rodina or the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, use xenophobic slogans in their programmes in order to attract votes, without facing a systematic and consistent response from the authorities. In this context, the ruling of the Moscow City Court banning Rodina party from elections to the Moscow City Duma in December 2005 on the grounds of incitement to ethnic hatred was interpreted by most civil society organizations as a political move to avoid any potential competition with United Russia. In fact, Rodina, which was emerging as the major 13 Polls conducted in 2005 by Levada-Center polling organization (http://www.levada.ru) and in April 2006 by the Public Opinion Foundation (http://english.fom.ru).