Renewed bribery at the sadly well-known
„Kavkaz“ checkpoint located on the administrative border between Chechnya and
Ingushetia has stopped again after the Federal Security Service (FSB) intervened.
„Ever since the very beginning of the war,
the „Kavkaz“ checkpoint has been notorious for its policemen collecting
exorbitant tribute from people wishing to pass through it. A self-styled
„tariff“ of fees ranging from 10 to 50 roubles was even developed. The practice
had continued almost until this past summer when policemen, apparently from the
Kirov region,
were deployed at the checkpoint. At that moment everything changed and the
bribe-taking stopped. „They‘ve even hung up a notice warning that an attempt to offer a bribe is a criminal offence,“ says
Souleiman, a 47-year-old mini-bus driver from Grozny.
„However, these guys were replaced in
October. Policemen from Kursk
who used to serve here at the very beginning of the war arrived, and it all
started again. They demanded a fee from mini-bus drivers as well as from any
vehicle passing through the checkpoint. The absence of a military registration
stamp in an identity document "cost" 20-50 roubles. Of course, people
tried to protest and refused to pay, but the policemen had their „methods of
coercion“. For example, they could block the road, thus creating a column
several kilometers long, and then let vehicles through at a rate of one or two
an hour,“ Souleiman says.
„We (mini-bus drivers) were even forced to
make a detour round this checkpoint through the village
of Sernovodsk in Chechnya's
Sunzhensky district. Repeated complaints were sent to the Prosecutor's Office,
to the Russian Interior Ministry and so on.
And finally last week our efforts brought results. Representatives of the
Federal Security Service (FSB) arrived at the checkpoint and made an
inspection. Then one of their officers remained there on duty for several days,
warning each driver against paying any bribes to the policemen and saying that
if the policemen create artificial problems, we have a perfect right to drive
through without stopping, and so on.
A notice was posted up with a telephone number which one can call if problems
arise. Now everything is back to normal. No one
is demanding bribes and everyone is working as they’re supposed to,“ says the
mini-bus driver.
According to an unnamed human rights
defender, the main reason for the bribe-taking is the juridical illiteracy of
the local population. „People are so tired of it all that they‘re ready to pay
50 or 100 roubles if that will get them where they need to be more quickly.
It’s most likely a peculiar war syndrome from the early years of the so-called
„counter-terrorist operation“, during which law enforcers at checkpoints
arbitrarily detained people and subjected them to torture and insults. Some
people disappeared without trace, while others were freed for ransom. Even now
Chechen residents fear and distrust law enforcers, seeing them more as a source
of possible danger than as representatives of law and order who are summoned to
defend their rights,“ he is convinced.
„Residents of Chechnya, especially the young,
have only a very faint notion of their rights and duties. They don't know, for
example, that policemen checking their documents must first of all introduce
themselves. Or that the absence of a military registration stamp in one's
identity document is not a crime. Or that no one
has the right to detain people at checkpoints without sticking to certain law
procedures and so on. And
unscrupulous policemen make use of this,“ said the human rights defender.
Source:
PW
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