Trying is not torture

APRIL 14, 2010 SVETLANA SOLDOVNIK

On February 1, 2010, The New Times magazine reported that Moscow riot police complained to the Russian leadership about violations by their superiors and unbearable working conditions. It was alleged that battalion employees, under threat of loss of bonuses, were required to carry out the plan - to detain three people per shift.

Subsequently, at a press conference at the press center of the Central Internal Affairs Directorate on February 4, they stated that they had not signed any letter. The commander of the OMON battalion wrote a statement of slander, which was the subject of an internal investigation.

On February 17, it became known that the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs completed an investigation based on materials from a publication in The New Times magazine, as a result of which the facts stated in the article “Slaves of the Riot Police” were not confirmed .

Earlier, the head of the Moscow Main Internal Affairs Directorate, Vladimir Kolokoltsev, called reports of violations in the capital’s riot police “slanderous,” noting that he filed a lawsuit to protect the honor and dignity and compensation for moral damage to the riot police officers discussed in the publication.

As part of the investigation into this case, the Central Internal Affairs Directorate intended to seize documents - primarily interested in the sources of information from the magazine.

As Ilya Barabanov, deputy editor-in-chief of The New Times, told Ekho Moskvy , investigators reached the editorial office, but did not get inside. The publication's lawyer formulated his claims to the investigators, after which they left the editorial office. The fact is that the editors did not sign the seizure protocol (moreover, they were not even informed that it was being drawn up); carrying out a seizure in such circumstances is a violation of the criminal procedure code. Having learned about the impending seizure, the magazine filed a cassation appeal with the Moscow City Court, and now the decision of the first instance court is temporarily suspended until the Moscow City Court considers the complaint and makes its decision on it. The hearing is scheduled for April 28.

The Central Internal Affairs Directorate has compiled an exact list of materials that they want to receive, but this desire is also illegal: it violates Articles 41 and 49 of the Law on the Media. Only by a court decision, during consideration of cases on the merits, can the court oblige the editors to disclose sources of information. This cannot be done at the investigation stage.

“We can talk about an attempt to put pressure on the magazine, on the creative team,” Ilya Barabanov said in an interview with Echo. “Let me remind you that a week and a half ago, a tracking beacon was discovered under the car of our editor-in-chief Evgenia Albats. Today they showed up to us. What they will do tomorrow is very difficult to predict. We are confident that we will be able to continue publishing the magazine in any case, we will do everything in our power for this, although, of course, it is now quite difficult to predict what else these guys will do.”