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The experts believe that the police reform is abortive

Russian Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev called the incident in Kazan as betrayal

MOSCOW, March 16 (Itar-Tass) — The newspapers commented on the situation in the Russian police. Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev held an extraordinary meeting of the Interior Ministry board, which was devoted to the incident in Kazan, where the detainee died after the tortures. The minister reprimanded Tatarstan’s Interior Minister Asgat Safarov and called those involved in the incident as traitors. Meanwhile, experts noted that the police reform failed and the recruitment methods turned out to be inefficient.

A new scandal in the police that was unrolling according to a scenario usual for the police shows a quite simple and sorrowful logical tendency for Russian citizens, the Vedomosti notes. The authorities cannot launch real reforms in the law enforcement agencies, because they are the backbones of the incumbent authorities, and particularly in their current tense corruption situation.

The man detained without any reasons, beaten and raped by a champagne bottle at a Kazan police station Sergei Nazarov died at the hospital. The human rights activists are getting complaints from people, who were tortured in this police station before, the newspaper recalled. Quite recently Nikita Leontyev, 15, was killed at a police station on January 22 in St. Petersburg.

Russian Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev called the incident in Kazan as betrayal. Deputy Interior Minister Sergei Gerasimov stated that the police will gradually make the police work transparent. The video cameras are being successfully installed at the police stations in Tatarstan.

The police reform, which was developed and carried out by the top brass of the Interior Ministry, did not change anything drastically, the Vedomosti believes. This is those people, who are engaged in the illegal business with the use of force against businesspeople or blatant law violations in order to fulfil the police working plan, the criminal schemes of profit distribution and the defence of their police fellows from criminal prosecution. Russian authorities cannot replace the full staff of the police, the prosecutor’s office and the corps of judges not because it is impossible to do it really, but because loyal law enforcers and courts are very important for the authorities. They are loyal until the authorities turn a blind eye on unlawful actions.

The scandal in Kazan was highly publicized, the Nezavisimaya Gazeta notes. More and more reports are coming about similar crimes in other Russian regions. It is becoming clear that the police reform failed. Experts find the reasons for the defencelessness of people in the face of a powerful power-wielding agency in the lack of control over it from the society.

Is the country’s leadership ready to launch a real reform in the agency, the newspaper contemplates. In the meantime, President Dmitry Medvedev believed that the result will be achieved thanks to sharp cuts in the numerical strength of the police staff and a higher salary to other policemen, as well as renovated rules of enrolment in the police. The plans turned out to be mistaken. Experts warned then that the police reform cannot be entrusted to the agency itself. It is important now to deal with the recent reform and make correct conclusions.

What is the reason for the failure of the reform? “The ruined institute reformed itself,” the Nezavisimaya Gazeta quoted the head of the Efficient Politics Foundation Gleb Pavlovsky as saying. “Any reform carried out without public control cannot improve the situation. Our police turned in some kind of an occupation army, which is seeking to control the occupied territory, which the police take as its own and not belonging to people. Meanwhile such army yields a commercial profit from the current situation and makes the situation absolutely hopeless.”

The leadership of the Interior Ministry had to acknowledge on Thursday for the first time that the methods of police recruitment introduced as a result of the police reform turned out to be inefficient, the RBC daily writes. Earlier the generals continued to affirm that all policemen inclined to commit crimes were fired as a result of the police reclassification and only the most worthy police officers remained. However, the Kremlin pledged to the newspaper that Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev does not face a dismissal for the murders at the police stations in St. Petersburg and Kazan.