August 18, 2005
Three alleged members of a neo-Nazi group have been arrested in Buenos Aires after pursuing and insulting a Jewish teenager in the same neighborhood where over the weekend skinheads severely injured another young man in a knife attack. The aggressors, all minors, were taken into custody after the 15-year-old Jewish boy called police from a telephone booth in which he took shelter and from which he was rescued by security forces. Last Sunday's victim is recovering in a capital hospital from 13 knife wounds. The authorities have ruled out a resurgence of neo-Nazi violence, but local media linked the Sunday attack with another skinhead assault in June, in which 19-year-old Ivan Kotelchuk died after being stabbed just outside a Buenos Aires bar. DAIA, the umbrella organization of Argentine Jewish groups, said on Wednesday that for several months it had been denouncing "the proliferation of anti-Semitic graffiti and acts by neo-Nazi groups" in Buenos Aires, and it called upon the authorities to "act in keeping with the severity of the case."
