The President of Tatarstan was banned from using a traffic police escort car

Starting today, Kazan human rights activists open a "video hunt" for traffic cops-violators. The videos will be sent to the prosecutor's office for inspections.

A decree of the Russian government has entered into force, according to which trips of members of the State Council of the country cannot be accompanied by traffic police cars. These include heads of regions, authorized representatives of the president in federal districts, as well as heads of factions in the State Duma. This was announced at the collegium of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation.

Now members of the State Council will be able to count on the escort of traffic police cars only in cases when they are sent to events held by Russian President Vladimir Putin or Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

Lawyers of the Kazan Human Rights Center remind that, in accordance with the Federal Law “On State Protection”, police escort is entrusted to the President of the Russian Federation, the Prime Minister, speakers of the Federation Council and the State Duma, chairmen of the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court and the Supreme Arbitration Court, the Prosecutor General and the Chairman of the Investigative committee of the Russian Federation.

“The picture that we can observe on the streets of Kazan. The traffic police car drives ahead of the VIP car with a flashing beacon and a special sound signal on and quickly flies through the intersection, where the traffic cop blocked traffic in advance, - says Ramil Khairullin, chairman of the regional branch of the Federation of Russian Car Owners. “Such “tricks” of traffic police officers will not work now: if blocking traffic for officials was previously considered unacceptable, now it is also illegal to escort VIP cars with police cars.”

The Kazan Human Rights Center and the branch of the Federation of Russian Car Owners in Tatarstan offer motorists and pedestrians to send them video recordings of violations by traffic cops for prosecutorial checks.

Video materials or links to them can be sent to the following email boxes:

Kazan Human Rights Center