MOSCOW, April 23 /TASS/. Neo-Nazi and extremist phenomena are often "dormant in society so long as favourable conditions do not emerge to wake them up," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a report titled "Neo-Nazism - Dangerous Challenge to Human Rights, Democracy and Rule of Law devoted to the 70th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945).

Konstantin Dolgov, the Russian Foreign Ministry Ombudsman for Human Rights, Democracy and Rule of Law, presented the report at TASS on Thursday.

Members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the document said, have undertaken a number of political commitments to fight against manifestations of racism, anti-Semitism and aggressive nationalism.

"Despite a solid number of commitments, Western countries are consistently pursuing a policy of ignoring and excluding problems related to Neo-Nazism from the agenda of OSCE meetings," the report said.

"Over the past eight years, the OSCE [unlike the United Nations or the Council of Europe] has not updated its commitments to fight Neo-Nazism despite a complicated situation in its space," the ministry said in its report.

The report quoted Nils Muiћnieks, the EU Commissioner for Human Rights, as saying that any actions designed to glorify Nazism, including marches and assemblies, should be punished and forbidden. According to Muiћnieks, the growth of xenophobia in Europe has reached an early form of extreme right-wing terror.

The Russian Foreign Ministry report said that the PACE had adopted two resolutions designed to fight Neo-Nazism and right-wing extremism. PACE "condemns the increased number of manifestations of Neo-Nazism and right-wing extremism as well as the growing popularity of Neo-Nazi parties in Europe. These resolutions note that these are not isolated phenomena typical of separate Council of Europe states but a pan-European problem.".