Rights defenders: abolition of police prevention registration in Dagestan is a civil society's victory

The Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) has confirmed that Dagestan has lifted the police prevention registration lists of followers of unconventional Islam concepts. Earlier, the Dagestani MIA has reported that the police prevention registration lists for the category of "extremist" are no longer being compiled. Oleg Orlov, a member of the board of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial", treats the refusal from the police prevention registration lists as the MIA's reaction to the criticism of human rights defenders. Police prevention registration will still take place, but positive changes in the law enforcers' activities are obvious, notes Valery Borschov, a member of the Moscow Helsinki Group.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that in many cases, people were unreasonably put on such police prevention registration lists, just for wearing beards or visits to mosques. In March 2017, Abdurashid Magomedov, Dagestani Minister of Internal Affairs, announced the abolition of orders on police prevention registration lists.

However, according to the HRC "Memorial", there are fears that police prevention registration lists will be compiled under other categories, for example, as "a Wahhabi" or "a follower of an unconventional Islam concept." The HRC mentioned the doctor Daniyal Alkhasov's case.

According to Oleg Orlov, from now, the appearance of a person, as well as a visit to a Salafi mosque, are not sufficient grounds for putting him or her on police prevention registration lists.

Oleg Orlov has noted the experience shows that in most cases, prosecution of the people on the police prevention registration lists has been stopped.

So far, it is still unclear how the data collected by the law enforcement agencies will be used further, the human rights defenders note.

Kirill Koroteev, an advocate of the HRC "Memorial", doubts that the files with personal data have been destroyed.

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