12:45, 3 May 2017

Officials intervene in picket in Makhachkala

Marat Aslanov at a solo picket. Photo courtesy of Shamil Khadulaev https://www.facebook.com/dagrsva?fref=ts

In Dagestan, staff members of the Ministry of Sport and the Compulsory Medical Insurance Fund take away posters from the hands of Marat Aslanov, a regional MP from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), who went to a picket. The police decided not to detain the picketer after they learned that he was an MP.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that today, Marat Aslanov came to a solo picket to the central square of Makhachkala. In his hands, he was holding posters with inscriptions referring to the recent statements about a bribe and Dagestani teachers voiced by the leader of the republic. One of the posters announces that "bribery is punished by the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation." On the other poster, in a quotation from the Rasul Gamzatov's poem, the phrase "a woman of the mountains" was replaced with crossed out "fat cows." The MP has explained that he wants to draw attention to the statements voiced by Dagestani leader Ramazan Abdulatipov on April 26.

At the forum "New Quality New Goals" held in Makhachkala, the leader of Dagestan stated that he had to bribe officials of the "Rosobrnadzor" (Federal Service for Supervision in Education and Science) when he was a rector of a university. Ramazan Abdulatipov has also advised school principals "to appoint pretty young women as their deputies." "And now, when you come to school, you see cows there!" said the leader of the republic.

Marat Aslanov noted that the Minister of Sports tried to use force against him, took away his posters and claimed that the picket had weapons.

According to an eyewitness, after learning that they met a deputy of the People's Assembly, the policemen behaved correctly.

The source has also added that people in civilian clothes forbid shooting the incident on their mobile phones and forced a young woman to erase the record she made.

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

Author: Oleg Ionov

Source: CK correspondent