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Tuesday 15 May 2007

£12 T-shirt with 'hidden' neo-nazi slogan from Russia


Guardian reported that one of London’s popular retailers – Burton, had been fooled into selling T-shirts with a slogan which read: “We will cleanse Russia of non-Russians!” (see picture)

Spokeswoman of Burton told the Guardian that the company had bought 6,000 of the T-shirts from one of their regular suppliers. At the time Burton was told the slogan translated loosely as "Be proud of Russia", and bosses thought it was 'harmless patriotism'. As soon as they were alerted by Russian speaking staff member to the gaffe, T-shirts were withdrawn from in- store and on-line site. No news yet of any enquiry or responsibility of “regular suppliers”.

This is a slogan of Russian skinheads and neo-nazi who were behind of recent killings of immigrants and ‘non-Russian looking’ citizens of Russia. This is the phrase which frequently painted on foreigners' homes by Russian neo-nazi, as Guardian rightly indicates.

This is an example of how modern neo-nazi may use “lost in translation” to reach out their audience and targets even way beyond their conventional catchments areas. This is the call for vigilance of retailers and shoppers alike.

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