MOSCOW (EJP)---Two 21-year-old Russian skinheads have been detained by police and are charged with inciting to racial and religious hatred after the attack against two Jewish men.

On Monday night, the two Russians shouted anti-Semitic slogans, before threatening and later beating a Canadese rabbi and the leader of a Jewish association in Ivanovo, a city located in central Russia, 300 kilometres north-east of Moscow, the Interfax news agency quoted police as saying.

"The victims were wearing traditional Jewish clothes .This was probably a pretext for the aggressors,” the local prosecutor said.

The two young Ivanovo residents have been arrested thanks to the testimony of people who witnessed the scene by hazard, police said.

“Police found material evidences linking the two suspects to a skinhead movement, » a prosecutor spokesman said.

Last year, 539 people have been victims of racial attacks, an increase of 17 percent in comparison with 2005.