Rights defenders oppose new composition of Dagestani POC

Today, the Public Chamber of Russia in Moscow hosted a conference of members of the Public Oversight Commissions (POCs) of Russian regions. It was attended both by the current and former POC members. During the conference, rights defenders from Dagestan, including former member of the POC, sharply criticized the new composition of the Dagestani POC.

The new membership of this POC is only nine people, whereas earlier there were 20 of them, Gasan Aigunov, the head of the International Centre for Public Diplomacy and Human Rights, who headed the Dagestani POC of the third convocation, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent. At the same time, out of about 20 rights defenders, nominated into the POC only two were admitted; others were rejected without explanations.

"The remaining seven POC members were nominated by Ombudspersons and Public Chamber members. They are not rights defenders; and many of them have a superficial idea of what a jail is," said Aigunov.

"We don't understand what criteria the Council of the Public Chamber is using to select candidates for the POC. Why have they rejected our worthy nominees and have elected incompetent persons? We heard no answer or explanations to the question. And the main question is: why there are only nine persons in the Dagestani POC, while Dagestan has population of over 3 million; the republic has over 4000 inmates, nine colonies, and 46 temporary detention facilities (known as IVSs)..." Mr Aigunov has stressed.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.