On 3 June, Commissioner for Human Rights in the Komi Republic Nadezhda Bikovskaya participated in the interdepartmental meeting on the improvement of mechanisms of ensuring human rights and legitimate interests of detainees or prisoners held in the pre-trial centres and penitentiaries of the Komi Republic Department of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia.

Representatives of the Komi Republic Civic Chamber, the Komi Republic Department of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia, the Prosecutor’s Office and the police also took part in the meeting. They discussed the issues of cooperation in the field of ensuring the security, as well as detainees’ and prisoners’ human rights. As a result, it was decided to establish a working group to select candidates for the public monitoring commission (PMC) selection, which would start working in the first half of June.

Nadezhda Bikovskaya highlighted the need for the bodies to cooperate and hold joint events, having said the following: "We have established the practice of joint visits to the places of detention together with the representatives of PMCs… Acting together, we inspect detention conditions deliberately, accurately and effectively".

Adapted from the Press Service of the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Komi Republic