Chechen human rights workers aim to eliminate ignorance of the law among police officers
By Umalt Chadayev
CHECHNYA - On May 16 a seminar on the theme “Eliminating ignorance of the law” was held in Grozny for officers of the Chechen Interior Ministry .
The seminar was organized by the Human Rights Centre of the Chechen Republic, with the financial support of the Royal Norwegian Embassy. It was held in the building where the office of the Chechen Human Rights Commissioner is located.
"This is the first time such a seminar has been held in our country," the Centre’s director Mikhail Ezhiyev told PW’s correspondent. The seminar was attended not only by officers of the republic’s law enforcement agencies, but also by representatives of non-governmental organizations, officials of several district administrations, the Chechen Human Rights Commissioner, members of the republic’s Public Chamber, and others.
"A training workshop of this kind for our police officers was long overdue," the human rights worker said. "We’ve done some monitoring of law enforcement officers in the past, and the results it produced were really shocking. It turned out that the vast majority of officers were ignorant not only of the ‘Law on the Police’, but also of the Russian federal criminal code, to say nothing of international law.”
According to Mr Ezhiyev, the seminar was aimed primarily at privates and NCOs of the Interior Ministry, as well as junior officers. "This was the first seminar designed to eliminate the huge blind spot about legal matters that exists in our law enforcement agencies," he says. "For example, many police officers have openly said that until now they were convinced that any order of a superior officer must be obeyed, even if it was against the law. Now they realize that orders may be of different kinds. After all, Ulman was also obeying orders, and faced prosecution as a result."
"We specifically aimed the seminar at rank-and-file Interior Ministry officers, as they are the people who do most of their work with the population, deal with daily routine activities, and constantly come up against problems of various kinds. I think that many of the crimes committed by law enforcement agents in Chechnya could be avoided if the right educational work was done with them," he said.
Ezhiyev believes that legal education is needed today not only for members of the Chechen Interior Ministry, but also for officials of the other power structures. There are plans to hold similar workshops for them, too.
Mikhail Ezhiyev was one of the directors of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society (RCFS), which was liquidated by a court decision. This Nizhny Novgorod-based human rights organization was accused of “inciting ethnic hatred" after its newspaper published interviews and statements by former President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria Aslan Maskhadov (who was killed in March 2005) and Akhmed Zakayev, an Ichkerian representative living abroad.(D/T) RELATED ARTICLES:
· Human rights defenders have held a seminar for law enforcement officers in the Chechen Republic (Committee Against Torture, 17.5.2007)
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