| Victims of “prevention” by the Bashkir police came to complain to the president Capital human rights activists, together with colleagues from the regional branch of “For Human Rights” in Bashkiria, yesterday held another press conference on the scandalous “preventive” operation, which was organized by local police in the city of Blagoveshchensk last December. In their opinion, many significant facts remained outside the scope of the criminal case initiated by the republic's prosecutor's office on the fact that Bashkir police officers exceeded their official powers. In addition, human rights activists introduced journalists to a delegation from the victims, who had arrived from Blagoveshchensk to Moscow the day before to meet with a representative of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs. The results of this meeting and the stages of the investigation of the case will be discussed today near the walls of the buildings of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Prosecutor General's Office, where human rights activists and residents of Blagoveshchensk will gather for a picket.
“We are only a handful of hundreds of victims who became unwitting participants in the events that took place in Blagoveshchensk on December 11-13,” 37 residents of Blagoveshchensk said at a press conference. As reported in police reports, as a result of the special operation, 500 people were detained, 218 of them were brought to administrative responsibility for indecent behavior on the streets. According to human rights activists, more than 1,000 citizens visited the police, and none of them received summonses to pay a fine for violating public order, but many were beaten.
Last week, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Bashkiria officially admitted that their employees committed “serious violations” during the operation in Blagoveshchensk, and the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the republic, Rafail Divaev, promised that his department would apologize to all victims. However, in general, both the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the parliament of Bashkiria (kurultai) gave a positive assessment of the actions of the police in Blagoveshchensk. Thus, on February 10, at an extraordinary meeting of the State Council, the deputy commission to investigate the Blagoveshchensk events recognized the work of the riot police as “justified” and “dictated by objective necessity,” and the Ministry of Internal Affairs itself as “victims in a large-scale information war” unleashed by “biased” and “unprofessional” journalists. As the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Bashkortostan reported yesterday, the ministry has already prepared nine lawsuits in the courts of Moscow, Ufa and Blagoveshchensk to protect the honor, dignity and business reputation of top officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and riot police officers.
In light of such speeches, a delegation from Blagoveshchensk came to Moscow to protest against the official investigation. “The Bashkir prosecutor’s office has been working on this case for two months. However, so far only four police officers have been charged, one of the victims said. “We no longer believe in a fair investigation.” According to the victims, a special investigative group from the Prosecutor General’s Office should be sent to Blagoveshchensk for an independent investigation. According to one of the organizers of the press conference, the leader of the all-Russian movement “For Human Rights” Lev Ponomarev, “there are fears that the “switchmen” will be called the culprits of mass violations of human rights. Meanwhile, responsibility for what happened should also fall on the Minister of Internal Affairs of Bashkiria, Rafail Divaev, who signed the order to introduce riot police into the city.” As Veronika Shakhova, who led the delegation from the victims, said, “if the lawlessness of the police does not receive proper assessment, and the perpetrators are not punished, the victims have decided to go on a hunger strike and hold an action until the truth is established.” Human rights activists also announced yesterday that they would do everything possible to hand over to President Putin a letter in which participants in the Blagoveshchensk events themselves described what happened in their city. Tatiana GRITSENKO |
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