Translated material
Arizona case
On May 26, a representative delegation of police chiefs from cities in Arizona, Texas, California, Utah, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Maryland met in Washington with US Attorney General Eric Holder and complained to him about Arizona Governor Jan Brewer. It is on her initiative that a law should come into force in the state at the end of July, according to which policemen will have the right to stop “suspicious persons” to check the documents to check their status in the United States - all of a sudden they are illegal, because of which, according to Brewer, , crime is on the rise. Latinos, Arabs, Asians - who else does Brewer have in mind, but does not speak openly? The Arizona innovation is "bad," police chiefs told Holder. They are very worried that other states are preparing to adopt it, and 52% of Americans, according to polls, are "rather supportive." Well, here comes a dark-skinned, dark-haired man - and what, immediately hook him? Like this? And if it is clean and transparent like glass? And if 20 more like him turn out to be nothing to do with it? Well, suppose the 25th turns out to be an illegal immigrant, but why did the rest fall under suspicion? Just for hair color and nose shape? And what then is America a “beacon of freedom”? Or maybe it is then a "prison of peoples"?
The new law, the complainants are convinced, will undermine the trust that the population has built up over the years in the police corps. After all, how can it be now. For example, in an immigrant family, the father beats the child, and the mother is afraid to dial “911” (the police) - suddenly they will be asked to show a green card or a driver’s license at the same time, according to Minneapolis Police Chief Tim Dolan. “You cannot ensure the security of the majority by putting pressure on the minority. Because people will be afraid to catch the eye of the police, crime will not decrease, but will only increase, ”this is the opinion of the chief of the Los Angeles police, Charlie Beck. “We are for strengthening the rule of law, but not at the expense of civil rights,” says Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank. The Prosecutor General listened to the policemen and promised not to delay with a "public decision".
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For some reason, in the United States, law enforcement officers now and then turn out to be a legal counterweight to power, in Russia - its repressive appendage
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Any comparison, of course, is lame. But what to do if the parallels themselves climb into the head. From a "melting pot" (America) to a "multinational country" (Russia) there really aren't that many steps. The idea of survival is one: unite and rule to your health. But for some reason, in America, law enforcement officers now and then turn out to be a legal counterbalance to power, in Russia - its non-legal repressive appendage. Thousands of tons of verbal ore have been spent on this topic - alas, so far in vain. So let's dream better.
This is exactly how I see it: Mayor Luzhkov summons the head of the Central Internal Affairs Directorate. “The Caucasus is restless,” the mayor argues, “immigrants from the south, Tajik and Kyrgyz guest workers flooded Moscow, bringing poliomyelitis and other rubbish to us. Therefore, we decided to introduce a strict anti-terrorist passport regime by decree of the mayor's office, Muscovites will support it. Whoever we catch, we immediately deport.” But the head of the Central Internal Affairs Directorate, instead of instructing police patrols to swindle people with a “non-Slavic appearance,” having gathered a team of colleagues in solidarity with him, goes straight to the head of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation: “This is wrong, it’s not good to selectively check the documents of nationalists and migrants. By doing so, we will set Caucasians and other ethnic minorities against ourselves, only increase mutual alienation and centrifugal tendencies in the country - even United Russia will not help. And there is no need to talk about maintaining influence in the strategically important Central Asia ... So let's solve the problem in a different way.” “All right,” the chief judge says, “I’ll think about what can be done here, President Medvedev, by the way, generally agrees with you.”
What did you dream?