By David Sophrin
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe
MOSCOW, Russia – As part of a new anti-terrorism campaign, a Russian official has proposed that the entire population of the northern Caucasus region be fingerprinted.
Alexander Bastrykin, the Chairman of the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office Investigation Committee, declared that the program would aid the federal government in investigating continuing acts of violence that originate in the Caucasus region. According to Bastrykin, approximately five Russian hundred police officers and military personal have been killed in that region in recent years. The program would be a “mandatory fingerprint registration for all citizens living in the North Caucasus region.”
Bastrykin’s proposal also called for the issuing of new registration licenses for all automobiles in the north Caucusus.
Outcry in response to the fingerprinting proposition was immediate. Some critics believe that such a program would only inflame the mistrust that the population of that region already holds towards the Russian central government. “This is going to antagonize people further in an already volatile region,” said Tanya Lokshina of Human Rights Watch. She also suggested that the program could violate the European Convention of Human Rights, to which Russia is a signatory nation.
Lyudmila Alekseyeva, a Russian human rights advocate, declared the proposal as ‘discriminatory.’ The population for whom fingerprinting would be required are almost entirely ethnicity Chechen.
A lawmaker in Chechnya was also quick to condemn the fingerprinting program. Ziyad Sabsabi noted that, in addition to it possibly violating the presumed innocence of those Russian citizens who are fingerprinted, the program would also be ineffective. Criminals, Sabsabi argued, could easily leave the region to avoid the fingerprinting process. Additionally, if the purposes of the proposed program is to combat crime, then “[logically] all Russian nationals living in the Russian Federation should be subjected to fingerprinting.”
If successful in implementing this program in the northern Caucasus region, Bastrykin alluded to the possibility of expanding the program throughout Russia.
For more information, please see:
ITAR-TASS – Investigation Committee suggests total fingerprint/DNA registration in Russia – 5 March 2010
RADIO FREE EUROPE – Russian Official Suggests Fingerprinting entire North Caucasus – 5 March 2010
REUTERS – Russia proposes fingerprinting for volatile N.Caucasus – 5 March 2010
RIANOVISTI – Chechen MP decries fingerprinting plan as human rights violation – 4 March 2010
