23:16, 22 April 2023

Head of police division in Chechnya calls on to seize cars from drivers during Eid al-Fitr

Rustam Aguev (in the center) held a meeting with his subordinates on the eve of Eid al-Fitr. Screenshot of the video posted on Rustam Aguev's Instagram (the activities of the Meta Company, owning Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, are banned in Russia) https://www.instagram.com/za_kra_rustam_aguev/

Rustam Aguev, the head of the Kurchaloi ROVD (District Interior Division) in Chechnya, has threatened to take cars away from violators of traffic rules, explaining this by the intensified measures during the celebration of the Eid al-Fitr.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that in January 2020, the head of the Kurchaloi ROVD demanded that his subordinates seize cars from violators of traffic rules, and send drivers to clean the streets. Law enforcers also forced local residents to clean up the territory of the mosque as punishment for drunk driving.

In 2019-2020, posts regularly appeared in social networks about "educative talks" of the police with the people detained for various violations in Chechnya; the above Rustam Aguev stood out for his zeal – he repeatedly scolded the detainees.

"There's no law written for Kadyrov's law enforcers. They do whatever they want. They can take away a car even for the simplest violation," the reader with the nickname sang_stehr wrote in a comment to the "Caucasian Knot" article.

Meanwhile, the law clearly stipulates the cases in which one's car can be taken away; and there are not so many of them. According to the amendments to the Criminal Code, confiscation of a car is possible upon a court verdict for driving without a license or in a state of intoxication by drivers who had been subjected to administrative or criminal punishment.

In Chechnya, well before the above amendments to the law, state servants threatened to take cars away from drivers. In June 2020, Ramzan Kadyrov harshly condemned violators of the restrictions on the number of cars in a wedding procession and instructed his subordinates to take cars away from violators.

The threat to seize a car is not used anywhere in the world, except for Chechnya, with the aim to improve road safety, Sergey Kanaev, the head of the Federation of Russian Car Owners, has stated.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on April 22, 2023 at 03:35 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.

Source: Caucasian Knot