HRC: More than 100 thousand people are in Russian pre-trial detention centers

The number of citizens in Russian pre-trial detention centers is growing steadily. To date, more than 100 thousand people are in jail, said Eva Merkacheva, a member of the Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation (HRC) and the Public Monitoring Commission (POC) of Moscow at a meeting of human rights activists with Vladimir Putin.

According to her, the number of prisoners in colonies has recently decreased by half, but there are still a lot of prisoners in the pre-trial detention center, and their number is growing. “Today there are 109 thousand people there, that is, it turns out that every fourth person who is behind bars is an innocent person, because a person is still innocent before the trial,” Merkacheva said.

According to a member of the PMC, most of those in the pre-trial detention center could be under house arrest. “While they are sitting, something unimaginable happens to their business, to their families … We believe that in fact the reason that these people are imprisoned is the low quality of the investigation,” added Merkacheva.

At a meeting with members of the HRC, Russian President Vladimir Putin also spoke about torture in the penal colonies of the Federal Penitentiary Service. According to him, it is necessary to carefully deal with what is happening and develop systemic measures to combat this phenomenon. Senators, as Putin said, have already begun work on changing the relevant legislation.

Putin suggested that human rights activists work on the law on foreign agents, urging them to “act subtly”, the law should not allow outside interference, but at the same time should “not de-energize the tools necessary for the country’s development.”

Putin also noted that he considers it necessary to negotiate with people who are dissatisfied with the draft law on the prevention of domestic violence, and promised to negotiate with them.

Speaking about the introduction of QR codes in transport, Putin noted that it is necessary to check the complete readiness of the entire system for this. He assured that the authorities will try to prevent any “rash decisions” with the introduction of the QR-code system at the federal level.