| The State Duma will free relatives of the victims from the army The children and brothers of fallen Russian policemen will have equal rights with the relatives of dead soldiers. Yesterday, the State Duma Defense Committee approved a bill restoring justice to the relatives of internal affairs officers, firefighters, personnel of penal institutions and some other law enforcement agencies who died in the line of duty. After the adoption of amendments to Article 23 of the federal law “On Military Duty and Military Service”, they will receive the right to be exempt from conscription for military service. The current version of the law exempts only relatives of deceased servicemen from the hardships of the army.
Of course, this is primarily relevant for employees of internal affairs bodies serving in Chechnya. Chairman of the Duma Defense Committee, Colonel General Viktor Zavarzin, noted: “People who go shoulder to shoulder into battle should have the same benefits. Today in Chechnya, police officers and servicemen from the Ministry of Defense often go into battle in the same formation.”
Human rights activists also unconditionally approve of this initiative. “We have been making similar proposals for many years, this will be very fair in relation to family members of law enforcement agencies, primarily the Ministry of Internal Affairs,” executive secretary of the Union of Committees of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia Valentina Melnikova told a Vremya Novostei newspaper correspondent. She considers this bill a big step forward, especially since at one time even the provisions of the law concerning children and brothers of military personnel caused great controversy. “They argued about who should be exempted from conscription: everyone whose father or brother died in military service, or only those whose relatives died while performing direct military duties,” says Ms. Melnikova. - In the end, we settled on a compromise formulation: “in connection with the performance of military service duties.” However, in our practice there were many cases when the mothers of those conscripts came, whose fathers died in the service, but did not belong to the Ministry of Defense. The family had already given one person back to the homeland, and another was taken away from her. This was wrong even in those cases when an armed person died in public service, and when the war in Chechnya began and employees of different departments began to participate in hostilities on equal terms, it became completely unfair.”
According to Valentina Melnikova, until now they had to look for various workarounds to leave their son to the already orphaned family. After introducing amendments, which should be considered in the near future, the situation should change, according to the committees of soldiers’ mothers. Irina BELASHEVA |
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