Ministry of Internal Affairs promises to address flaws in work with citizens

Brest activist of the movement “For Freedom” Inha Abramava received a reply to her appeal to the Minister of Internal Affairs Ihar Shunevich, in which she drew attention to the shortcomings of the employees of the government agency.

In his response, Deputy Head of Information and Public Relations Department of the Ministry of the Interior Heorhi Euchar reports that “the shortcomings have been identified and are subject to elimination.”

It is worth mentioning that the reason for the appeal by the Brest activists were problems faced by Ms. Abramava, when trying to find information on the implementation of a decision taken by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women in her case, namely which temporary detention facilities have women police officers on their staff, as finding this information directly in the regional directorates of the Interior proved virtually impossible. In her address to the Minister, Ms. Abramava, in particular, wrote that the website of the department of internal affairs of Hrodna regional executive committee has no mail addresses of the district departments of internal affairs, while sending electronic statements to district and city police departments of Hrodna, Vitsebsk, Mahiliou and Minsk is unrealistic, as the official websites of the Interior Ministry provide no email addresses.

In 2011, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women recognized the discrimination against Inha Abramava during her detention in the detention center of Leninski district police department of Brest in October 2007. In its decision, the Committee asked the Belarusian government to guarantee that “the examination of female prisoners and their supervision should be provided by adequately trained female staff.”