VLADIVOSTOK, Russia (AP) - Police sappers in the Russian Pacific port of Vladivostok on Thursday gingerly removed an anti-Semitic sign from the side of a road and blew up suspicious-looking sacks that were wired to the poster.
The hand-painted sign, saying "Death to Jews," appeared to be inspired by a similar placard, rigged with explosives, that was placed on a highway outside Moscow in May. When a passer-by tried to take down that sign, it blew up in her face, leaving her with burns and eye injuries.
Since the May incident, several copycat signs with dummy packages resembling explosives have been found on Russian roads.
The Vladivostok sign was erected in the city center overnight and police received the first reports from citizens in the morning, a police spokesman said.
Three bags wired to the sign were destroyed by a special device, said Igor Shilov, a spokesman for the Federal Security Service, which participated in the police operation. It was then found that the bags contained fake bombs carved out of wood, he said.
Vladivostok has seen anti-Semitic graffiti, but there have been no physical attacks against Jews, police said.
The spate of anti-Semitic signs comes amid heightened fears of violence against ethnic minorities in Russia. While ultranationalist violence remains rare, Russian skinheads threatened a "war against foreigners" earlier this year and several attacks against dark-skinned people have been reported recently.
The day after the May explosion, skinheads in Moscow attacked a 16-year-old American Jewish boy whose father serves as the rabbi in the central Russian city of Voronezh.