Orlov: safety of MIA employees in Dagestan depends on people's confidence in them

The members of the Independent Trade Union of Interior Employees and Prosecutors of Dagestan, who took part in the roundtable held in Moscow, said that corruption and systemic violations of the law in the Dagestani Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) are among the main triggers of the rise of extremism and increased count of casualties among policemen. According to the human rights activist Oleg Orlov, the trust of the society in the police is a guarantee of policemen's safety.

The roundtable was held at the press centre of the "Parlamentskaya Gazeta" and was initiated by the Russia's Association of Police Trade Unions, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports.

Alexei Lobarev, the Chairman of the Association, has reported that since the start of November Russia lost 160 policemen, who performed their duties.

The participants of the roundtable discussed the problems in the Dagestani MIA and demanded to conduct broad-scale checks in all the MIA's departments.

Let us note here that according to the above Independent Trade Union, the number of victims in the armed conflict among law enforcers is somewhat lower than the data obtained by the "Caucasian Knot" based on its own calculations and information from open sources. Thus, during the summer and autumn months of 2013, 38 power agents were killed in Dagestan.

One of the reasons of the problems of the police is the personnel crisis, said Magomed Shamilov, the Chairman of the Independent Trade Union, adding that "the most talented, competent and professional employees were dismissed. The remaining professionals are also squeezed out... The MIA was turned into a criminal community. A group of killers was revealed there, who took orders to kill people."