The Federation Council has demanded to prepare offers on strengthening of national security measures. Due to the increased threats of terrorists, it was decided to prepare an interdepartmental Commission for combating the financing of terrorism. In addition, it was proposed to expand the powers of security forces, and to cancel the moratorium on the death penalty.
According to the “RBC”, lawmakers are ready to consider “any offers of the law enforcement bodies and special services to enhance the safety of citizens, prevent the terrorist acts”, said today the speaker of the Federation Council Valentina Matvienko. “First and foremost we care about the national security of our country”, - she emphasized. The security forces would be interested in the passage of amendments to the law on the police, allowing them, in particular, for the protection of citizens to shoot at women without visible signs of pregnancy. The bill was introduced at the end of the spring session, but was sharply criticized by human rights defenders and stuck in the State Duma. The recent events may be a reason to set in motion those amendments, as a member of the Duma Security Committee Nikolay Kovalev suggests.
According to the “Independent newspaper”, yesterday the State Duma representatives of the LDPR presented an offer to return the death penalty for terrorists. According to the Deputy Alexander Sherin, “if someone threatens the safety of citizens, the enemy must be found and disarmed – and perhaps we should reintroduce the death penalty against persons, who are related to terrorism”. The liberal democrats are not alone in this opinion – in the Communist party members some time ago were puzzled with the same question.
The Communists have prepared a number of anti-terrorist proposals that will be soon submitted for consideration in the Duma. In particular, it is about bringing employees of private security companies (PSC) to the operations – according to estimates of the fraction, nowadays about 3 million former men of arms work there, which can assist the security forces. According to the head of the legal service of the Communist party of Vadim Soloviev, there is also a need to provide for administrative liability of district policemen for the formation of terrorist cells in their district: “the district police officer is the first person on a way of the terrorist. His job - to know what happens in the area, trusted to him, what dens and enclaves are organized there. To respond to complaints from local residents. Unfortunately, today few people know their district police officer by sight.”
According to the “Moskovsky Komsomolets” newspaper, on November 18th the President signed the decree about formation of the Interdepartmental Commission on combating the financing of terrorism. The new body will consider information about citizens and companies, which are suspected of having ties with terrorists. First of all, we are talking about cash injections. The relevant information will be provided by the Federal Financial Monitoring Service and the Investigative Committee. They will be the main organizational basis of the Commission. There will be included representatives of the Prosecutor's office, Central Bank and even the regional officials. In the Statute of the Commission it is said that it has the right "to make decisions on freezing (blocking) money or other property owned by the organization or natural person in respect of whom there are reasonable grounds to suspect their involvement in terrorist activities (including terrorist financing), to amend the previous decisions or to cancel them.” The fact is that according to the decree, even if there is no reason to add a person to the list of suspects, but there is only a suspicion, it's enough to freeze any of his properties and funds.