"Memorial" tells Dagestani's story on "prophylactic registration" in a cartoon

For six years already, Vazir Bazanaev, a resident of the Dagestani village of Chinar, has been suffering from law enforcers' obsessive supervision. He was put under the so-called "police prophylactic control" back in 2013; since then, the law enforcers cannot leave him alone. The history of the Dagestani, who complained about the encroachment of his privacy, is covered by a special project of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial".

Law enforcers have placed Vazir Bazanaev into the "preventive registry" because he attended a mosque in Derbent. According to law enforcers, several parishioners of this mosque have left for Syria; therefore, Vazir and his family were put under a close supervision.

Vazir himself insists that he has never violated the law and does not profess any radical views; however, his home was several times unreasonably searched; and he was regularly summoned to the police and the village administration for "preventive conversations", demanding to write "explanatory notes". Several times he was removed from the bus when he was trying to travel to another regions.

The law enforcers' constant control created employment problems for Vazir. His wife was also pressed by law enforcers, and even thought about divorce.

On April 11, the HRC "Memorial" posted an audio comic strip "I Want Vazir!", based on the audio files that Vazir provided to rights defenders – the records of his telephone conversations with various law enforcers in 2017-2018.

"The policemen's actions violate citizens' rights to freedom and personal inviolability, to freedom of religion and travel, to privacy and to receiving information about citizens' rights and freedoms," the HRC "Memorial" has stated.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on April 12, 2019 at 02:36 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.