Agent 002

Employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs will be given indulgence

While the country is sitting on “self-isolation” due to coronavirus, and public actions are actually prohibited, the government decided to speak with a remarkable legislative initiative.

The key proposal of the government is to supplement Article 30 of the Law “On Police” (“Guarantees of the Legal Protection of the Police Employee”) with the norm that “the police officer is not subject to persecution for actions committed in the performance of the obligations assigned to the police and in connection with the exercise of the rights granted to the police.”

It is proposed to give the police the right to use firearms (article 23 of this law) not only to “suppress attempts to seize firearms” (as under article 24, an attempt by a detained person is regarded to touch firearms ”), but even if the person tries to“ commit actions that give reason to regard the threat of an attack on the police officer ”.

It is proposed to give the police the right to open cars “to ensure the safety of citizens or public safety in riots and emergency situations” and not be held for this.

The police receive the right to furnish fences of the venue of mass events, cordon or block territories, residential buildings, buildings and other objects and inside them to conduct a “personal inspection of citizens who are under them, objects, mechanisms, substances”, and inspect vehicles.

The first of these proposals - and the most dangerous - is an indulgence pre -written by the police.

Whatever the policeman does in relation to citizens, including opening fire to defeat in accordance with the second proposal, he will not be anything for this. Not to mention the beating of a person to half death in response to a paper cup thrown into a policeman or in response to an attempt to stop the brutal beating of a defenseless person at a protest campaign.

The policeman should not answer for anything, he will not bear any punishment, as he acted "in connection with the exercise of the rights granted to the police."

Article 286 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation on the excess of official powers - according to which theoretically can be obtained up to 10 years in prison - simply ceases to exist for police officers.

It will be possible to shoot citizens, if the project is accepted, it will be possible to decide without any doubt: it is enough for the policeman to consult with himself that he regards some actions of a citizen as a “threat of attack”.

The police can open cars to ensure the safety of citizens (and only for this) now - for this there is Article 39 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Extreme Necessity” that allows this act to “eliminate the danger that directly threatens the personality, if this danger could not be eliminated by other means”. But the authors of the project want to give the police such a right not only for, say, the rescue of the child locked in the car and left in danger, but also for "ensuring security in emergency situations and with riots."

At the same time, practice shows that the police easily announces the peaceful walks of citizens around the city-as in Moscow in the summer of 2019.

The police can cordon and block territories now in accordance with Article 16 of the Law “On Police” - but only in two cases: with “elimination of the consequences of accidents, disasters of a natural and technogenic nature and other emergency situations, during quarantine measures during epidemics and (or) epizootics, as well as in“ conducting measures to prevent and suppress mass disarms and other actions, violate the rights and freedoms of citizens, traffic, the work of communications and organizations. ”

No additional rights in connection with coronavirus are required here. And the trick is that they want to endow the police with the right to search citizens and their cars within a cordon. What does the virus have to do with it?

Finally, the police had long been protecting places for mass events and so - without any law. Moreover, at the same time, it also sets the “framework”, and conducts censorship directly prohibited by law. For example, categorically refusing to pass with “inconsistent” posters.

We summarize: if all this is accepted, a policeman can do almost everything he wants with impunity with you. It will be almost impossible to achieve his punishment - for example for cruel beating.

And now in the courts considering the cases of participants in protest actions, the phrase “the court has no reason not to trust the testimony of police officers” in the decision is a typical one - how absurd or false there were not these “testimonies”.

But if the law is accepted, it will be pointless to even go to court.

By the way, according to the Agora group, in 2019, for abuse of power using violence, two and a half times less security forces were convicted than in 2009.

The government’s proposals are an obvious response of the authorities to the intensifying discontent of citizens in the conditions of “pseudo -nuclear and undercarantine”: there is practically no help from the state, “survive as you can,” but the nuts are twisted every day more and more. And not the first such answer: the protests of 2011-12 were already responsible for a combination of the restriction of the Internet, tightening punishments for rallies and strengthening the police arbitrariness.

And also - this is the answer to the demand for the “deanonymization” of police officers and Rosgvardists who beat citizens: first failed the introduction of identification numbers for the security forces, and now they offered “Indulgence” for them.