Orlov: “I Hope that Civil Society Experts will be Involved
in the Elaboration of the Body in Charge of Investigating into
Police Crimes”
On March 21, 2012, a group of human rights organizations –
“Committee against Torture”, “Agora”, “Public Verdict”, “Memorial”,
“Civic Assistance”, “Moscow Helsinki Group”, the movement “For Human
Rights”, the “Youth Human Rights Movement”, “Groza” and others, sent
a letter to Aleksandr Bastrykin, head of the Investigative Committee
(IC) of the Russian Federation, proposing to create within the IC an
independent body, which would be in charge of investigating into
crimes perpetrated by officers of the Ministry of Interior, the
Federal Drug Control Service and the Federal Penitentiary Service.
According to human rights activists it would be the first necessary
step to solve the problem of police brutality
(
http://www.civilpetitions.org/campaigns/petition/view/number/15/ in
Russian).
On March, 28, Bastrykin has instructed to work on that proposal. The
official representative of the IC Vladimir Markin declared that “in
connection with the internet petition appealing to the chairman of
the IC and signed by a number of human rights organizations,
Batrykin has ordered to work on the issue of creating within the IC
a subcommittee focused on investigating into complaints about the
work of law enforcement agencies and into criminal cases directed
against policemen and officials of other law enforcement bodies”
(Interfax).
“We are pleased that our letter provoked such a rapid reaction”
commented Oleg Orlov, chairman of the Council of the Human Rights
Centre “Memorial”.
“Nevertheless it is not clear how and who will work on our proposal.
This process could be absolutely opaque to the society. It is
crucial to involve experts from the civil society in the elaboration
(of the new body)”.
“Our proposal is not confrontational. On the contrary, concerning
this question, the leadership of the IC and we are allies”.
“Before starting we should seriously elaborate the conception of
this independent investigative body that, within the IC, will be in
charge of investigating into police crimes. Without this previous
step, any hope of successfully fighting police impunity would be
pointless”.
March 29, 2012