(RFE/RL)
30 January 2006 (RFE/RL) -- Russia's National Bolshevik Party (NBP) says it has again been denied official registration by the Justice Ministry.
A statement posted on the party's website says this is the fifth such denial since 1998.
Attached to the statement is a document purported to be the Justice Ministry's most recent ruling. In it, the ministry cites several violations of the law on political parties, including calls to defend the rights of ethnic Russians living abroad, to justify its refusal.
NBP spokesman Aleksandr Averin told the RIA Novosti news agency today that the party's leadership would appeal the Justice Ministry's decision to the Supreme Court.
The agency says there has been no confirmation from the Justice Ministry.
The NBP, which is headed by former emigre writer Eduard Limonov, has adopted a strong anti-Kremlin and anti-globalization rhetoric.
The NBP has won fame through a series of flamboyant protest actions.
A Moscow court in December 2005 sentenced 39 party members for forcing their way into a presidential administration building.
Last week, some 50 NBP activists briefly occupied an administrative building of the Gorky Automobile Plant (GAZ) in the central city of Nizhny Novgorod before being arrested. The action was meant to protest alleged plans by the plant's management to lay off some 40,000 workers in the coming months. GAZ owner Oleg Deripaska has denied the accusations.
Russia's Supreme Court last year upheld a Moscow court's order to have the party disband.
(with material from RIA Novosti)
Factbox: National Bolshevik Party
Factbox: National Bolshevik Party
- Created in 1994 by radical writer Eduard Limonov, Eurasianism ideologue Aleksandr Dugin (who soon left the party), and rock musicians Yegor Letov and Sergei Kurikhin.
- Limonov was a member of the Soviet literary underground in the 1960s. He emigrated to the United States in the 1970s, where he became close to American Trotskyites and anarchists.
- Limonov's best-selling novel, "It's Me, Eddie," has been translated into 15 languages.
- The party's official publication is "Limonka" the name, literally "little lemon," is also idiomatic Russian for "grenade."
- The NBP is believed to have several thousand followers, most of them young. They are popularly referred to as "limonovtsii."
- Started as a neo-fascist organization, the party now prefers to describe itself as an opposition group that supports democracy. Its ideology is a mixture of totalitarian and fascist symbols, geopolitical dogma, leftist ideas, and national-patriotic demagoguery.
- President Vladimir Putin is one of the party's constant targets. The party's website lists Putin's "crimes" as election fraud, reforming the Soviet-era benefits system, and the government's response to the Dubrovka and Beslan tragedies.
- The party has gained fame by staging provocative protests and publicly challenging its foes. Some of its favorite stunts include throwing eggs, tomatoes, and mayonnaise at prominent public figures.
- Its emblem combines the Nazis' red-and-white flag with the Soviet hammer and sickle.
- Authorities have continually cracked down on the party. In August 2004, 39 activists were arrested and charged with "attempting to seize power and organize a mass disturbance" after breaking into the presidential administration building.
- In June, the party was outlawed on extremism charges by a Moscow court. Russia's Supreme Court confirmed the ban in November.