MOSCOW, Jan. 11 (UPI) -- Moscow police said they are investigating a YouTube video showing football fans burning a Koran and forcing a beaten man to renounce Allah.
The video, uploaded Jan. 5, shows five men with their faces obscured burning a Russian-translated version of the Muslim holy book with lighters. The video then cuts to a man who appears of central Asian origin with a bruised and swollen face. He is made to repeat the phrase "I renounce Allah" several times, the Moscow News reported Thursday.
The video was uploaded under the name Oleg Makarov. Social media accounts under the same name show a far-right Moscow native and soccer fan who rails against Islam and terrorist attacks that have recently taken place in the southern city of Volgograd, where 34 people were killed in to bombings at a train station in December.
The attacks there were blamed on a militant Islamist insurgency in the neighboring North Caucasus.
