Olga Kamenchuk from the Russian Public Opinion Research center told RT how police officers are perceived by citizens and whether it is worth striking back, as Minister Rashid Nurgaliev advised the nation to on Thursday.
“It is actually kind of forbidden to stop the police officers in whatever work they are doing," Kamenchuk told RT. "And – as I have heard and read – the citizens who we are polling, they say in more than 90% of cases the police will later find excuses why they did this or that.”
Lawyer Igor Trunov told RT that it was a very strange statement by the minister from the point of view of the law, because “if you resist an officer or, for example, if he decides you have threatened his life, you will have to fight to get the least possible charge, which is, again, 12 years behind bars. That is why the minister's recommendation is, at the very least, impractical, and citizens should not follow this recommendation by any means,” he added.