Tweet
RusData Dialine - Russian Press Digest
October 12, 2005 Wednesday
Russian police to face an "orange revolution" well-prepared
by Andrey Riskin, Mikhail Tolpegin
SOURCE: Nezavisimaya Gazeta, No 220, p.1
Law enforcers getting ready to suppress large-scale riots
Russian law enforcement agencies are preparing to deal with mass
protest actions. Large-scale exercises of the Interior Ministry riot
units have been held in several regions of the country and new riot
equipment and hardware is being purchased abroad. A large batch of
water cannons will be bought in Israel, Major General Mikhail
Sukhodolsky, deputy interior minister, said Tuesday. He said they
"will soon be used to stop unsanctioned demonstrations and riots."
The general also said that an additional sum of 370 million rubles
($13 million) would be allocated for the OMON special police units
and special operations forces.
"Fear sees danger everywhere," said Lyudmila Alekseyeva, the head of
the Moscow Helsinki Group, a prominent non-governmental human rights
body. "Officials, starting from the deputy minister, have lost sleep
after the events in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. So, they are
spending taxpayers' money to buy water cannons so that they can
disperse those same taxpayers, although those have shown no intention
to riot so far."
"Water cannons and tear gas are the necessary instruments of police
in a democratic state," said Boris Makarenko, deputy general director
of the Center for Political Technologies. "The absence of such
non-lethal weapons in the arsenal of the Kyrgyz police led to very
serious consequences this spring." As for the deputy minister's words
about the use of such special equipment 'soon', the expert described
it as a Freudian slip: "Our law enforcers have been seeing orange
everywhere since last autumn."
Last Monday, the special units of the Russian Interior Ministry and
the Armenian police held a joint anti-riot tactical exercise in the
Krasnodar region. Similar exercises were held in Altai last December,
in Chuvashia last May, in the Orenburg region in June and in the
Khabarovsk region in July.
October 12, 2005 Wednesday
Russian police to face an "orange revolution" well-prepared
by Andrey Riskin, Mikhail Tolpegin
SOURCE: Nezavisimaya Gazeta, No 220, p.1
Law enforcers getting ready to suppress large-scale riots
Russian law enforcement agencies are preparing to deal with mass
protest actions. Large-scale exercises of the Interior Ministry riot
units have been held in several regions of the country and new riot
equipment and hardware is being purchased abroad. A large batch of
water cannons will be bought in Israel, Major General Mikhail
Sukhodolsky, deputy interior minister, said Tuesday. He said they
"will soon be used to stop unsanctioned demonstrations and riots."
The general also said that an additional sum of 370 million rubles
($13 million) would be allocated for the OMON special police units
and special operations forces.
"Fear sees danger everywhere," said Lyudmila Alekseyeva, the head of
the Moscow Helsinki Group, a prominent non-governmental human rights
body. "Officials, starting from the deputy minister, have lost sleep
after the events in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. So, they are
spending taxpayers' money to buy water cannons so that they can
disperse those same taxpayers, although those have shown no intention
to riot so far."
"Water cannons and tear gas are the necessary instruments of police
in a democratic state," said Boris Makarenko, deputy general director
of the Center for Political Technologies. "The absence of such
non-lethal weapons in the arsenal of the Kyrgyz police led to very
serious consequences this spring." As for the deputy minister's words
about the use of such special equipment 'soon', the expert described
it as a Freudian slip: "Our law enforcers have been seeing orange
everywhere since last autumn."
Last Monday, the special units of the Russian Interior Ministry and
the Armenian police held a joint anti-riot tactical exercise in the
Krasnodar region. Similar exercises were held in Altai last December,
in Chuvashia last May, in the Orenburg region in June and in the
Khabarovsk region in July.