Public control in Russia

Places of compulsory detention are places of human confinement (prisons, police detention centres, and FSB pre-trial detention centres, rooms for those administratively detained, guardhouses, disciplinary battalions, special schools, etc.).

For example, instead of appointing active young human rights defenders to the new composition of the Moscow Public Monitoring Commission (2nd convocation), representatives of security-related veterans’ organisations, professional security guards, and so on, were appointed.

Worse still, despite all attempts at negotiation, the Civic Chamber’s working group crossed out Ivan Ninenko and the Moscow commission’s most active participant, Mikhail Kriger, from the list of recommended candidates on 9 November.

This was motivated by the claim that Ivan and Mikhail supposedly have a mass of administrative penalties, including for using obscene language in public places. There is probably no need to say that this is a brazen and outrageous lie, thrown in by security-sector lobbyists, which the Civic Chamber, for inexplicable reasons and without being presented with any evidence, wanted to believe.

We must try to convince the Chamber that it is wrong. This is not needed for Mikhail Kriger (he will breathe a sigh of relief), it is needed for all of us—those for whom members of the Public Monitoring Commission (ONK) arrived following late-night calls, without checking whether they were arriving to help liberals or just beaten-up lads. It is needed for those prisoners in the detention centres of Moscow and Russia who now will have no one to complain to about rotten food, incurable diseases, and the arbitrary conduct perpetrated by the administration. And the first of those who would rush to help in any situation were and remain human rights defenders.

Human rights defenders in Moscow have coordinated a picket for Tuesday, 16 November, at 19:00, at the Chistye Prudy metro station. I hope this will be only the beginning of a campaign against the lawlessness of those who benefit from destroying public control in the city and the country. Please come to the picket, distribute information about what is happening in blogs, communities, and the media. Help those who have always helped you in any way they could.