Russian Police Behaving Ever More Brutally to Anti-War Activists, Chashchilova Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 6 – Russian police are behaving ever more brutally toward anti-war activists not only because the powers that be protect them against charges but also because they are angry about being banned from travelling abroad and increasingly have had experience in the war zone itself, according to Mariya Chashchilova.

            The lawyer for the rights monitoring group OVD-Info says that “the more the police themselves are restricted in their rights, the more violence they show towards those who are trying to protest and protect their own rights” (svoboda.org/a/vse-litso-bylo-v-krovi-beznakazannostj-politseyskih-sadistov/32399371.html).

            “My colleagues and I have may times encountered completely ideological rapists who continue to work in the Russian power structures,” Chashchilova says. “And the number of such professional killers will grow. They feel ever more impunity, and the situation won’t change for the better in the near future” given that those above them in the hierarchy are on their side.

            Those who are victims of such illegal actions may not always come forward but that enough have done to over the last 14 months to justify the conclusion that such brutality reflects state policy rather than being simply the product of over-worked, under-paid and angry policemen.