Police have detained two people suspected of staging a second anti-Semitic attack in as many weeks against an art exhibition at Moscow's Manezh exhibition hall, news reports said.
The suspects, a man and a woman, ripped a work by artist Vadim Sidur from the wall, before proceeding to shout that "that the whole exhibition will now be subjected to a pogrom,” Manezh's spokeswoman Alyona Karneyeva was quoted as saying by state TASS news agency Wednesday.
Before the alleged attack, the pair had been “calmly walking around the exhibition,” she said.
Four of Sidur's works were targeted by vandals during a previous attack on Aug. 14, Karneyeva said. The attack was staged by Orthodox activists from the ultraconservative God's Will movement.
The leader of the movement, Dmitry Tsorionov, denied any involvement in the latest attack but voiced his solidarity with the vandals.
“I don't know what happened there at Manezh, but wholeheartedly support this protest,” he said via Twitter.
Art restorers from the Grabar All-Russian Art Restoration and Research Center said that two of Sidur's four damaged pieces would require substantial work before they could be exhibited again, TASS reported.
Police detained two alleged attackers from the latest incident and were holding them for questioning, Interior Ministry spokesman Andrei Galiakberov was quoted by TASS as saying.
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