Police get privileged treatment, human rights activist says

At an online discussion titled “Use of brute force by the police: Steel mandate against citizens?” the story that happened in Lori province on August 14 was raised, when a Ford was crashed while being chased by a police car, and two people died. Residents of nearby villages who came to the scene after the accident dragged and cursed and beat the police officers on duty, blaming them for what happened, overturned and threw their UAZ into the gorge. Four people have already been arrested on charges of using violence against the officers, Zhanna Aleksanyan, President of the Journalists for Human Rights, NGO, said.

“The residents of the village of Marts, who were taken as witnesses to police station and abused, are war veterans. How can this be done when people are purely psychologically depressed, having witnessed many sufferings and tragedies, have not yet regained consciousness, while the police treat them this way? When the prime minister sees that there is no control, that the police are in a privileged position, must intervene. The prosecutor’s office should exercise control, but it does not,” the human rights activist said, stressing that the Soviet style of giving privileges to the police has not changed.