Prison

Members of the State Duma Committee on Public Associations and Religious Organizations prepared a bill on the creation of a new human rights structure, Kommersant reports . Under the Commissioner for Human Rights, it is proposed to create a federal public observation commission (Fonc). The authors of the document do not hide that they want to deprive the public chamber of the monopoly in the field of control over the places of imprisonment.

In their opinion, since 2008, public observation commissions have been experiencing a crisis in their work. “Over the five years of the PMC, they in most regions became controlled by immigrants from the law enforcement agencies: for example, in Mordovia, Tatarstan, Chelyabinsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Saratov regions, the leading roles were taken by security forces or people affiliated with the FSIN,” sources in the State Duma explained to the publication.

The interlocutor cited the example of a protest in the Kopeysk colony in the fall of 2012. The PMC in the Chelyabinsk region, led by the former head of the local IK-15 Anatoly Tarasyuk, in fact, was inactive, and the real state of affairs in the colony was revealed only after members of the Human Rights Council came from Moscow.

The Public Chamber categorically rejected the accusations that the PMCs are controlled by the security forces. “The PMC Institute is developing and developing well. Now in regional PMCs 39 percent of the security forces, that is, less than half. They were recruited not because they wanted to make structures dependent, but because it was necessary to somehow fill out the PMC,” the member of the OP Maria Cannabih, who oversees the institute of observers, told the publication. In general, she negatively reacted to the initiative.

The Commissioner for Human Rights Vladimir Lukin also does not want to go into conflict with OP. He believes that the Fonc should form "all three main human rights structures of the country: the Ombudsman apparatus, the Presidential Council for Human Rights and the Public Chamber." Amendments can be adjusted taking into account the wishes of Lukin, one of the authors of the document noted.

The authors of the amendments propose to significantly expand the powers of Fonc observers. According to the bill, controllers will receive admission not only in the colony, prisons and pre -trial detention centers, but also to insulators for deportation of illegal immigrants, insulators at the FSKN, FSSP, FCS, as well as in psychiatric hospitals. In addition, observers are proposed to give the right to participate in the commissions on parole.

The bill implies an increase in the status of observers. They intend to put on immunity from criminal prosecution. A criminal case against a member of Fonc can be instituted only with the sanction of the Prosecutor General.

They are ready to cooperate with such a new structure in the FSIN, they told Kommersant in the department. In the FSKN, the initiative was taken negatively, doubting the decency of human rights activists. "We have people who have committed many crimes. If human rights activists can freely go into insulators, these people will get the opportunity to influence the investigation, since not all human rights defenders are honest," the representative of the department said.

Yaroslav Nilov, head of the State Duma Committee on Public Associations and Religious Organizations, who participated in the development of amendments, suggests that the document can be entered into the State Duma this summer. However, the State Duma will not be examined not earlier than autumn.