Dagestan: rights defender who opposed environment pollution fined by "Rospotrebnadzor"

The Inter-District Division of "Rospotrebnadzor" (Russian Federal Agency for Consumer Supervision) for Dagestan fined Murtazali Tagirov, head of public organization "Fighter for Justice" by 4500 roubles.

He was fined after on April 27 the "Rospotrebnadzor" employees audited the shop belonging to the rights defender.

Let us remind you that a month after Tagirov addressed Nizami Adigyuzelov, deputy chief physician of the Inter-District Division of the Dagestani "Rospotrebnadzor", on the issue of illegal construction within the sanitary zone of the October Revolution Canal, he received a notification about revision of the small store that he owns. This occurred in the presence of the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

The protocol on the results of auditing the store indicates, in particular, the following violations: absence of a contract on garbage collection, absence of a badge on the shop assistant, and no marking of the brooms."

The pretext for the audit, according to Tagirov, was in his claims addressed to the deputy chief physician of the inter-district division of "Rospotrebnadzor" for Dagestan. In particular, Murtazali Tagirov asked about the measures taken by the Inter-District Division on the instruction of Gennady Onischenko, Chief State Sanitary Inspector of the Russian Federation, in relation to the problems with the depressing environment condition in the suburbs of Kizilyurt and townships of Komsomolskoye, Sultan-Yangiyurt and Khanar.

Tagirov wrote about it in his appeal to Onischenko in 2007; and the Chief Sanitary Inspector sent his letter to the Dagestani Department and asked to check the facts presented by the rights defender. From there, the letter was dropped for taking actions to the Inter-District Division.

In particular, the letter said that more than 17 pits in the outskirts of Kizilyurt pollute the air, creating unbearable conditions for the people living around. For this reason, the villages have extremely high incidence of various forms of cancer and tuberculosis.

Another problem highlighted by Tagirov in his letter was pollution of the October Revolution Canal with household wastes and effluents. The canal, which is over 50 km long, supplies drinking water to about one million residents of Makhachkala, Kaspiisk, Izberbash and dwelling settlements of the Karabudakhkent District.

According to Tagirov, he was fined by the same sum as the owners of the quarries, which cause enormous damage to the environment and the health of the surrounding communities.