Internal Affairs Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev said on Friday that the new centers would track both text and audio-visual materials.

According to Nurgaliyev, the decision was made by an interagency commission and will be implemented throughout the country by regional presidential plenipotentiaries.

Nurgaliyev noted that similar centers already exist in the St. Petersburg State University system and the state-owned Center for Information Analysis Technology in Moscow. Plans for one to be set up in Southern Federal University are pending.

Elaborating on the number of anti-extremism cases that the agency has undertaken, the minister said: “Two hundred and nineteen cases of investigation and analysis were initiated in 2011. Investigative agencies filed 67 charges and issued 130 cautions, warnings and advisories. In 47 cases, access to particular internet resources was blocked and their activities were halted.”

While Russia’s hostile environment towards journalists is nothing new – it hovers down in 142nd place on Reporters Without Border’s free press index – online newspapers have generally enjoyed a relative amount of freedom. Meanwhile, police have used accusations of “extremism” to crack down on opposition figures, ecological activists, and other entities deemed undesirable to the ruling authorities. With the expansion of such investigative work into the online realm, news websites and bloggers who criticize state or local governments will likely be subjected to an increasing amount of pressure and censorship.

“There, behind my back, in the past, remains bribery, abuse of authority, corruption and all that is negative – today there is none of that,” he announced during a meeting with Kostroma city police.

A ministry-administered “reassessment” of Russia’s police officers was carried out across the country on August 1, during which “issues of questionable declarations of income, real estate and financial transactions came to light,” Nurgaliyev explained.

Of the more than 875 thousand officers who underwent the reassessment, about 183 thousand were fired.

According to the minister, “only the best of the best remain in the new structure.”

Worth noting is that Vice Minister of Internal Affairs Sergei Gerasimov admitted on August 2 that there had been incidents of corruption during the reassessment procedures, albeit “minimal” ones.

The new federal law “On the Police,” Which went into effect March 1, renames Russia’s police forces from the “militsiya” to the “politsiya” and tightens control over how they operate. Part of the reforms involves cutting 22% of the force by 2012 down to 1,106,472.

Two suicide bombers have killed at least 38 people and injured more than 70 in separate attacks on the Moscow metro during the Monday morning rush hour. Russia’s Federal Security Services have labeled the attack as an act of terrorism and suspect insurgents linked to the volatile North Caucasus region to be responsible for the incidents. Both attacks were carried out in high-traffic metro stations – one at Park Kultury and another at Lubyanka, located directly underneath Russia’s federal security headquarters.

The attacks are the deadliest Moscow has seen since 2004, when a suicide bomber killed 10 people outside the metro station Rizhskaya. The most recent attack elsewhere in the country occurred late last November, when 26 people were killed in the Nevsky Express train bombing between Moscow and St. Petersburg. Russian officials confirmed on March 6 that a security operation had been carried out a few days earlier in the North Caucasian headquarters of an Islamic extremist group it claims was responsible for the attack, killing its top leader and a number of others militants. Some media reports are speculating that Monday’s attacks could be retaliation for this and other recent deadly Russian operations in the area.

The opposition movement Solidarity has issued a statement regarding the bombings in Moscow.

Statement by the bureau of Solidarity in connection with the terrorist attacks in Moscow

We in the Solidarity movement express our condolences to the relatives and close ones of those killed as a result of the utterly cruel terrorist acts in the Moscow Metro, and wish a safe recovery to those wounded. Right now, they are the ones suffering most of all.

According to media reports from Russian intelligence agencies, the terrorist suicide bombers were Caucasian immigrants and followers of Islamic extremist organizations. Islamic extremism has flourished in the Caucasus as a result of unresolved problems in the Caucasus. As a consequence, the number of terrorist acts in the country has risen 50 percent in just the past half-year.

Solidarity takes note of the failure of the Russian government’s policy in the Caucasus. The vigorous announcements by the Kremlin and intelligence agencies about the destruction of this or that militant should fool no one. While Putin’s regime remains supported by corrupt thugs in the Caucasian republics, the number of terrorist acts will continue to rise, and we will constantly feel that we are in danger.

This problem will not be resolved without a change in policy towards the Caucasus. Obviously, the security agencies, whose financing has increased ten times over in the past ten years, have turned out to be unprepared for the fight against terrorism even right next to FSB headquarters.

After the 1999 Moscow apartment bombings, Putin vowed “to flush all the terrorists down the toilet” and thereby won over the support of the entire nation. In the forefront of the war on terror, he became president. Under the guise of the war on extremism, he imposed censorship throughout the country, abolished gubernatorial elections, and turned all other elections into a farce.

The sorrowful result – terrorists, outfitted with suicide bombs, work their way unchecked into the center of Moscow and blow up the metro.

We know that in discussions on the fight against terrorism, there will be an increase in repression and pressure on the opposition and hatred towards Caucasians will be propagated. However, neither of these things will solve the problem. The problem will be solved with a change in policy and a return to the rule of law, civil rights, and constitutional order.

After today’s terrorist acts in Moscow, Medvedev has an obligation to dismiss those responsible for the failure of anti-terrorist activities and policy in the Caucasus in their entirety: Vladimir Putin, Aleksandr Bortnikov, and Rashid Nurgaliyev.

Translation by theOtherRussia.org

For more information on the March 29 Moscow metro bombings:

• New York Times: Subway Blasts Kill Dozens in Moscow
• Radio Free Liberty/Radio Europe: FSB Suspects North Caucasus Link In Deadly Moscow Bombings
• Life News: Photo gallery of bombings and aftermath
• List of those killed in the attacks (in Russian)

The current law, titled “On the Police,” dates back to 1991, when “there was a different state, a different time, and different responsibilities,” Nurgaliyev said in his address. “And any law should correspond with current realities.”

The minister gave the infamous Russian tradition of “identity checks” as an example of an outdated protocol – to an extent. “In accordance with ‘On the Police,’ if a person is outside without identification documents, a police officer has to bring him to the station to establish his identity,” Nurgaliyev said. “But now that’s entirely unnecessary – the patrol cars have computers, and officers on foot have hand-held devices, so they can use our information database to establish the identity of a citizen in the course of a few minutes in that very place.”

The Internal Ministry plans to finalize a draft of the new legislation later this spring, and will then post it on the agency’s website for Russians to read and send in their own input.

“Every voice will be heard and taken into account,” the minister said.

Nurgaliyev stressed the importance of improving the relationship between Russia’s civilians and the police. “A person should be certain that, when he comes to a local police station, that he will meet an officer who is open to communication, who is considerate and kind-hearted,” he said.

Additionally, Interfax reported on Wednesday that plans had been posted on the agency’s website for a regulation that would require all civilian, military, and law enforcement personnel in the Internal Ministry to inform their supervisors of any possible instances of corruption among their colleagues.

Notorious levels of brutality and corruption have stained Russia’s police forces for years, but media coverage of such incidents exploded after a lethal shooting spree by a drunken police major in a Moscow supermarket last April. Since then, the need for drastic police reform has figured among the most agreed upon topics by Russian politicians, the media, and the public alike, and President Dmitri Medvedev has made a number of proposals to that end in the past several months.

On Tuesday, the day before Nurgaliyev’s radio address, reports surfaced that the minister had been given nine months to fix the dire situation in his agency or face being fired. According to the newspaper’s source in the central apparatus of the Internal Ministry, whether or not his initiatives were successful would be judged by the number of criminal suits filed against the police, monitoring by the media, and reports by human rights and other public organizations.

The article, which was published on Monday by the New Times magazine, is based on allegations made by former police officer Larisa Krepkova, who left the elite Zubr subdivision of the Russian Internal Ministry’s OMON security forces a year and a half ago due to illness. According to Krepkova, officers from the unit would travel to Moscow’s Yaroslavskoye Highway to recruit migrant workers, who were then brought to the Zubr base in the nearby region of Shchelkovo. There, they were forced to dig ditches, set up fences, and clean toilets without pay, even though Official invoices included tallies of the cost of labor.

Krepkova said that the workers, who she labeled as “slaves,” even wound up working in the dacha of Deputy Interior Minister Colonel General Mikhail Sukhodolsky. In addition to not being paid the workers were beaten and poorly treated in general. After Internal Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev undertook a survey of the base, the workers were assigned more specific tasks, she said.

The former officer explained that funding for labor was previously determined by the Zubr officers themselves, and that today the funds are specifically allocated by the Internal Ministry. As such, she was unaware if Zubr was continuing such practices today.

The New Times article adds that the Zubr OMON subdivision is under the direct jurisdiction of Internal Minister Nurgaliyev, and is commonly known as “the minister’s personal security.”

A spokesperson from the Internal Ministry said on Monday that they plan to sue the magazine for libel.

Monday’s article is the second in less than a month by the New Times to address problems with the OMON, which are notorious for their brutal suppression of activist rallies and other protests. On February 1, the magazine published an open letter from a number of former Moscow OMON to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, describing poor working conditions, mistreatment by their superiors, orders to break up opposition rallies, and rampant corruption.

The next day, members of the Moscow city OMON announced their decision to sue the New Times for libel. City Police Chief Vladimir Kolokoltsev later stated that an internal investigation found the charges to be false. Additionally, the agency sent invitations to a number of journalists and rights activists to join the OMON for Russia’s traditional Maslenitsa festival celebrations. The OMON said that the event was a chance to show that the agency had nothing to hide, but the online newspaper Gazeta.ru described the proceedings as obviously staged.

The New Times noted that in response to the February 1 article, it has received a record number of letters from police officers with similar experiences. Its editors said on Monday that while they have yet to receive notification of any lawsuits regarding the articles, they are prepared to defend them in court.

Monday’s article can be read in its entirety in Russian by clicking here.

Judge Dmitri Fomin handed down the conviction on Friday for two counts of murder and 22 counts of attempted murder.

The former police major sparked a national media blitz last April when he walked into a Moscow supermarket around midnight and began randomly shooting people. Three people were killed and many others were injured.

CCTV footage shows the officer, clearly drunk, struggling with patrons and supermarket staff while trying to pull out his weapon. Yevsyukov admitted in court to the murder of one cashier after being shown the incident on tape, but said that he has no memory of what happened that night.

During closing arguments on Tuesday, Yevsyukov stated that “I’m not asking for a light sentence, I’m asking for fairness, if I may ask for it.”

Defense lawyer Tatyana Bushuyeva, who had argued that Yevsyukov was not in a normal state of mind and asked for the court to consider the incident “an act of hooliganism,” said that they plan to contest the ruling.

Moscow City Police Press Secretary Pyotr Biryukov admitted to RIA Novosti that they had expected a life sentence, saying it was “a deserving punishment.”

Survivors injured in the shooting, who were earlier denied compensation by the police because Yevsyukov was off-duty at the time of the incident, are already renewing their appeals.

In addition to life in punishment for the former officer, Judge Fomin issued a separate statement to Russian Internal Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev, declaring that the career politics of his agency are “unsatisfactory.”

Investigators had determined that Yevsyukov was under stress due to pressure at work prior to the incident.

Tackling Russia’s notoriously corrupt and violent police force has been a stated goal this year for Russian President Dmitri Medvedev. Yesterday, the president fired two deputy interior ministers and more than a dozen top law enforcement officers, and issued his second order in less than a month for drastic cuts in law enforcement personnel.

While violence and corruption on the part of the police is nothing new for most Russians, the media attention brought on by Yevsyukov’s killing spree has resulted in increased coverage and criticism of the disturbing number of incidents of brutal police criminality. As reports followed one after another of officers killing pedestrians while driving drunk, fatal beatings, and an increase in police suicides, top governmental officials began calling for the Internal Ministry to be dissolved altogether.

In a recent example earlier this month, an elderly composer was severely beaten and robbed in the city of Yekaterinburg by a group of police who allegedly swore at the victim, telling him “Nurgaliyev isn’t going to help you.” Local authorities only accepted the composer’s appeal about the incident after he filed it a second time, and no criminal charges were initiated until after the story broke in the Russian media last Tuesday.

Sergei Beloglazov, a 62-year old piano professor at the Ural State Conservatory, originally filed a complaint on February 2 that he had been beaten and robbed by police on February 1. According to the professor, he was on his way home from the store when he was stopped by a police officer to check his identification documents. Beloglazov did not have his passport, which Russian citizens are legally required to carry at all times. The officer demanded that he come to the police station in order to have his identity established, but the musician refused.

At that point, says Beloglazov, several officers began to beat him, saying, “Nurgaliyev isn’t going to help you, bitch,” referring to Russian Internal Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev. “A composer,” the officers went on, “that means you’re a faggot, and we piss on people like that.”

Additionally, the police robbed Beloglazov of 2000 rubles (about $68) and he has lost feeling in his left hand, which he says may affect his ability to play the piano. Local authorities only accepted his appeal about the beating upon filing it for a second time, he says, and a criminal suit was only initiated after the story broke in the Russian media on Tuesday.

According to a press release from the Sverdlovsk regional prosecutor’s office on Wednesday, the decision to initiate charges was made only after prosecutor Yury Ponomarev personally demanded that the local police address the composer’s complaint. He had pointed out that it had been a week since Beloglazov filed the complaint. “However, as before, no proper criminal case had been initiated. And this is in spite of the presence of clear indications of criminality in the actions of the police,” says the press release.

Escorted by a local human rights representative, Beloglazov met with Sverdlovsk Regional Police Chief General Mikhail Nikitin on Tuesday evening, who privately apologized for the incident and promised not to do anything to hinder the investigation. Despite his concerns, Beloglazov says he was satisfied with the meeting and invited the general to one of his concerts.

The police officers allegedly involved in the beating are charged with exceeding their official powers with the use of violence. If convicted, they could face up to ten years in prison.

Sources in the local branch of the Russian Internal Ministry say that the officer charged with instigating the incident is Lieutenant Valery Postnikov, a canine handler. In an explanatory note, the sources say, the lieutenant claims that while he and his colleagues did participate in the incident, the musician had been drunk.

To prove their point, police officers distributed security camera footage on Wednesday from the store that Beloglazov visited prior to the beating. One clip shows a man appearing to be the composer entering the store, and the second clip shows the same figure exiting the store and taking a gulp from a bottle. “I’m not going to deny that I purchased a light beer in the store,” explained Beloglazov. “But I was not so drunk as to fall over, like the police are indicating in their explanatory notes. This doesn’t give them the right to beat me.”

The composer’s colleagues spoke out strongly in his defense. Vice Rector Yelena Fyodorovich of the Ural State Conservatory insisted that the video clips had been falsified. “Beloglazov was not examined for intoxication when he was detained. When a medical examination was done later, it showed nothing. Such actions on the part of the police are simply outrageous,” she said.

While the Russian police have long been notorious for their violent abuse of authority, they came under particularly harsh criticism after Major Denis Yevsyukov killed three and wounded several others in a Moscow supermarket while drunk late last April. With the renewed wave of media attention to police abuses that followed, prominent government and public officials began calling for the Internal Ministry to be dissolved. In December, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev ordered the Ministry to be extensively reformed, and in a January 24 statement said that the number of police personnel “needs to be reduced and wages should be raised.”

The success of such efforts remains to be seen. In a post on his blog, opposition activist Ilya Yashin described an exchange in a Moscow police station on January 31, a week after the president’s statement. Upon asking an officer why the police station’s bathroom was overflowing with garbage, Yashin was told that “if we’re being serious, it’s the fault of the Internal Ministry reforms. Did you hear that Medvedev reduced the police force by 20 percent? So all the janitors in our station have been fired. Not a single one remains.”

The videos, which Major Aleksei Dymovsky posted in two separate parts on YouTube and his own website on November 5, detail alleged abuses of senior officers and poor working conditions for their subordinates. Gribakin stated that Russian Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev had appointed an investigative unit to look into Dymovsky’s allegations and found that they did not correspond to reality. Additionally, Gribakin said, Dymovsky had slandered his fellow officers and “discredited his honor and dignity,” thus providing the basis for his dismissal.

Gribakin also said that the Interior Ministry will undertake an agency-wide check of the Novorossiysk police bureau and that Minister Nurgaliyev would report the findings to President Dmitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin.

A couple of days after posting the videos, which have now received more than two hundred thousand hits on YouTube, Dymovsky said that he fears for his safety and has been forced to hire a bodyguard. He believes that he is being followed and is making arrangements to send his family to Moscow for protection.

Dymovsky, who worked in a police department that fought illegal narcotic trafficking, made the videos to show the Prime Minister what he said was “the life of cops across Russia…the ignorance, the boorishness, the recklessness, where officers die because of their dim-witted bosses.” He said that senior officers treated their subordinates “like cattle,” and that officers worked without weekends, received extremely low salaries, and are demanded to investigate and arrest people for nonexistent crimes. “The Chief of City Police conferred me with the rank of major on receiving a promise from me to frame an innocent person,” Dymovsky says in the video.

Human rights advocates in Novorossiysk have expressed their readiness to defend the officer. They noted that despite everything Dymovsky had said, it was far from all that happens in the Novorossiysk police department. “It’s scarier yet; there just aren’t police officers who, like Aleksei Dymovsky, are ready to tell the truth about what is happening,” said Vadim Karastelev, director of the Novorossiysk Committee for Human Rights.

Police in Russia have long been accused of abuse and corruption. A recent study estimated that 1 in 25 people are tortured, beaten, or harassed by law enforcement officials in Russia each year. In a case last October, a human rights activist was beaten into a concussion and detained by police in St. Petersburg when he asked them for identification.