IRKUTSK, February 28 - RAPSI. The Sverdlovsky District Court of Irkutsk has sentenced a member of the Belarusian Culture Partnership to eight months of correctional labor for posting extremist material online, the local Interior Ministry department said on its website.

Alexei Kukhta promoted Nazism and nationalism on his personal pages on a social networking site.

"The content included numerous posters, photographs, comments on them and poems which are extremely hostile and disdainful of certain ethnic groups and races," the statement says.

Experts have concluded that the content contains allegations about the inferiority and deficiency of people of certain ethnic groups or races. Some of Kukhta's statements encouraged users to take violent action against and even to kill people of these nationalities.

The police blocked Kukhta's pages and searched his flat, where they found various Nazi-like symbols. Kukhta was charged and sentenced for inciting hatred and hostility. He plans to appeal the verdict.

Several years ago, Alexei Kukhta was fined for wearing a coat bearing Nazi-like regalia at public events held as part of a youth festival in the Irkutsk Region.