In Dagestan, Ombudsperson finds the problem of kidnappings non-topical

Svetlana Alisultanova, Ombudswoman in Dagestan, notes to a significant decrease in the number of kidnappings in the Republic. She has made this statement today at the 20th session of the National Assembly of Dagestan of the fourth convocation.

"From July 2007, we have no applications on kidnappings. Today, Dagestanians are dissatisfied with illegal methods of investigation. 95 complaints were filed on this issue, all of them were readdressed to the prosecutor's office where the applicants live," Ms Alisultanova has stated.

The Ombudswoman has informed the Republic's legislators that within the last year about thousand citizens have addressed her office in Dagestan. Most of the complaints were on inactivity of municipal and state bodies and their officials, the second place among the applications belongs to violations of social rights, such as wrong pension calculation, problems with establishment of disability category, refusals to render social support. Almost every fifth complaint has arrived from confinement institutions or was on the actions of law-enforcement bodies.

Making comments on the Ombudswoman's presentation, Gyulnara Rustamova, Chair of the NGO "Dagestan Mothers for Human Rights", has noted that human rights have been and are broken in the Republic: "In Dagestan, unlike Russia, the Ombudsperson is a figure dependent first of all on Dagestan President Mukhu Aliev, since appointment to this post is made upon his presentation."