Law enforcement officers detain teenagers who are allegedly suspected of participating in the Ryodan subculture in Tashkent

This was announced today, March 6, by the press secretary of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Shokhrukh Giyasov.

Earlier, it was reported that in Tashkent, law enforcement officers detained a group of teenagers. They were suspected of participating in the Ryodan subculture.

According to Giyasov, before that, the internal affairs bodies received various information that the organizers of this movement are destructive forces based outside the country, their purpose is to promote national, racial, ethnic and religious hatred, as well as riots, violence against citizens who do not share their ideas.

“Based on this, the Tashkent city police department warned citizens about the danger of falling under the influence of destructive slogans. As a result, on March 5, in order to prevent violation of public order, the Tashkent police department took preventive measures and held conversations with parents and participants in the incident,” he said.

Shokhrukh Giyasov also published one of the appeals that was distributed among teenagers.

“Hello, at 18:00 today we will break into the forum building. We’ll be armed to the teeth: pneumatic, cold and combat. Also, we will distribute videos on social networks from anonymous users with attempts to discredit the actions of law enforcement agencies,” the appeal reads.

It has previously been reported that the so-called “Ryodan” PMC has nothing to do with paramilitaries, but is a teenage subculture that originated on social media and is inspired by the anime series Hunter x Hunter, which features a gang called Ryodan.

For the first time, the new “movement” attracted media attention on February 22 after a brawl in the Aviapark shopping center in Moscow. Telegram channels then wrote that Ryodan representatives got into a fight with other teenagers because some did not like how others were dressed. As a result, the fight became massive and affected several floors of the shopping center.

On February 27, in Kyiv, Lvov and Kharkiv, members of the “Ryodan” PMC staged mass brawls. In Kharkiv, more than 200 young men and women were detained for participating in the brawl. Most of them were also minors.

Later, the city DIA also reported that fans of the informal youth movement “Ryodan” PMC appeared in the capital of Uzbekistan.