"It takes a great deal of time to raise a new generation of police officers—highly moral, resilient in the face of professional risks and corruption. This must happen gradually, not through destruction," the interior minister noted. "To put it metaphorically, if a weed suddenly appears among healthy stalks of grain, you simply pull it out by the roots—you do not rush to plow up the entire field." Rashid Nurgaliyev called on cultural figures to teach police officers to be 'sensitive.' "That is something no amount of money can buy," he emphasized. The day before, on March 27, Rashid Nurgaliyev proposed introducing a course in humanism for police officers. "We are very angry right now, we have many difficult problems, but we simply need to learn to listen and to be heard; we need to be able to empathize and show compassion," he said. http://lenta.ru/news/2012/03/28/nurgaliev/ I* sensed something was wrong at ten o’clock. They took him away at seven, and I panicked because I kept calling and he wouldn’t answer. I sent a text message: “We’re coming to you.” We got dressed—we have a little daughter—and went. We came to the duty office, and the guy who had come for him walked out. I stopped him and said, “Where is my husband?” — “In there.” I said, “Well, let me see him, let him come out.” — “He won’t come out.” Then I got a text message: “Go home, everything is fine, I’ll stay here.” I stood there for a long time, waiting, trying to knock on that door, trying to force my way in. W**e stood in the duty office and heard him screaming. We were standing there, and they were abusing him. It was so horrifying! http://rusrep.ru/article/2012/03/20/dalniy_otdel/ (Be sure to read it, though it is not for the faint of heart.) I asked some Kazan human rights activists whether everything described in the article was true. They say: it’s* even worse, but not everything can be written about. * 98**% of Interior Ministry employees in Tatarstan passed re-certification. ** I have a very clear feeling that a course in humanism will not help the police in Kazan. And all the conditions are there for a Kazan experiment as part of a future real reform of the Interior Ministry: com**pletely disband all the police officers and hire new ones. With **higher salaries and real, strict personnel screening. Even if replacing the staff is only one part of the reform, at least it would be something. All the conditions are there: Kazan is a big city, and it is possible to find decent people with the relevant education. If it succeeds, we will get a new кадровый костяк (core cadre) of the Interior Ministry in the Volga Federal District. It can’t get any worse there already. PS And Nurgaliyev, of course, should be kicked out without ceremony. How much longer can this go on? Update: Well of course, everything has to be classified: The investigative group of Russia’s Investigative Committee, looking into torture at Kazan’s Dalny police station, forced the man who was raped with a bottle and his lawyer to sign a non-disclosure agreement regarding the criminal case materials. Investigator Artur Gabdullin, who is part of the investigative team, gave no justification for this position.