All news

Putin says no plans to suppress human rights work

"I can tell you for sure there are no instruments for this in our state policy arsenals and there are no such intentions,” the president said
Photo ITAR-TASS
Photo ITAR-TASS

SELIGER, Tver region, July 31 (Itar-Tass) —— Russian state agencies do not set themselves the goal of suppressing human rights work and they do not have the instruments for this, President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday as he addressed participants in the Seliger'2012 youth forum.

"I can tell you for sure there are no instruments for this in our state policy arsenals and there are no such intentions – I mean intentions to suppress human rights work or activity,” he said.

“Some individuals claim they are serving jail terms for their political convictions but once you start clearing out the real causes you see they were detained in connection with the events quite different from politics or defense of human rights,” Putin said.

He believes in spite of this that every specific case requires thorough scrutiny.

“Some people defend other people’s rights and there are individuals or organizations that don’t like their activity and start fighting with them, sometimes with the use of the inventory and capabilities of state agencies,” Putin said.

He mentioned mass actions of protest, adding: “Quite naturally, all the people taking part in these actions have the right to it and the state has a duty of ensuring these rights.”

“Still there’s one more aspect to it, namely, they /participants in mass actions – Itar-Tass/ should keep their activity strictly within the limits of law, too,” Putin said.

“If they attack policemen and inflict bodily damage on them, if they hurl stones and so on and so forth, these actions will be disrupted beyond any doubt,” he said. “Otherwise we’ll have to watch the scenes people in London saw a year or a year and a half ago.”