The police began to look for mobilization evaders in hotels and hostels

Police officers in at least two Russian cities raided hotels and hostels: they are looking for mobilization evaders. Human rights activists believe that the police cannot serve the summons. Hotel employees fear for their business: law enforcement officers scare away guests.

“I returned in the evening to a hotel in the center of Moscow, saw police officers with tablets and people in civilian clothes with papers at the counter, felt unkind, went for a walk until night, returned, asked the administrator girl what it was, she said that they had come from the police and military registration and enlistment office, they demanded a list of male guests, citizens of the Russian Federation, in order to hand over the agenda, she did not give it, saying that she could not do this without a manager, but tomorrow he would give it back. At four in the morning I left out of harm’s way, rented an apartment according to an ad, ”said a purchasing manager from Astrakhan, who came to Moscow to sign new contracts. He did not name the hotel, so that the administration would not have trouble.

Another young man who came to the capital to visit his relatives said that he ran into police at the Mark Inn capsule hostel in eastern Moscow. “As in a movie, I hid from them around the corner, they went the other way, but my friend was not lucky – he was handed a summons – to appear at the Moscow military registration and enlistment office at the place of residence to clarify the data,” he shared his story.

According to him, the policemen sat right at the entrance and handed summonses in a row to all men with a Russian passport.

Police officers and people from military registration and enlistment offices with subpoenas have been walking around the capital’s “accommodation facilities” for two weeks now, starting with hostels on the principle from the outskirts to the center, now they have reached small hotels, some of them go in the second round, said the owner of a capsule hostel in the south-west of the capital . “I think they will go further on medium and large,” he said.

“Two policemen from the council came today, explained that they were searching for evaders, waved a piece of paper in front of the administrator’s eyes, and when we asked to look, make a copy, they conferred and left until they returned,” the manager of the hotel in the center says about another visit. The guests of another small hotel, on Belorusskaya, were less fortunate: the police already had a guest list, because hotels are required to transfer information about guests to a single database, visitors went to the numbers where men from the Russian Federation live and, based on the results of the check, called one of the guests to the military registration and enlistment office for temporary registration, the administrator of this hotel is indignant.

The manager of a capsule hostel in the center of the capital says that they were actively handing out summonses last week, drawing up acts on those who did not take it, and some of the guests left the hotel, and someone went to the military registration and enlistment office. “And judging by the chats in which hotel owners and managers communicate, they are very active,” he confirms.

Such inspections are taking place not only in Moscow. “And they came to us, and to our competitors. We have a lot of non-residents after the start of mobilization, perhaps they are just running away from it, ”said the manager of the hostel from Vladivostok.

“Now we are afraid that the guests will not stay in legal hotels, because we register everyone, we transfer the data to the authorities,” an employee of a Moscow hostel is worried.

The authorities are integrating data from a variety of databases to search for dodgers – the police, traffic police, border guards, tax, hospitals and hotels, according to the Network Freedoms project. According to the data collected by the project and human rights activist Pavel Chikov, there are cases when the cars of those who did not appear at the military registration and enlistment office on the agenda were stopped by the traffic police, tracking them using the Potok system. Judging by the fact that non-staff employees of companies began to receive subpoenas, the police have access to tax audit data. And by the fact that some patients were given a summons right in the clinic – and to the databases of records in medical institutions. At least one Muscovite was detained by police in the metro on suspicion of draft evasion – he was found on cameras and travel recognition systems, Baza said.

Police officers have the right to search for dodgers and detain them, but only in order to draw up a protocol on an administrative violation, the law does not allow them to deliver citizens to military registration and enlistment offices or mobilization points, Chikov explains. The police can also serve summons, but only if they have a written request from the military commissar about the impossibility of serving the summons to a particular citizen. In other words, the police cannot fill out the summons and hand it over on their own, the lawyer emphasizes.

The administrators of most hotels said that the police first received a list of guests, and then they tried to hand them subpoenas, that is, they followed certain people. In the event that the police wrote the summons themselves, or committed other violations, you can challenge the forced conscription by filing a complaint with the police to their leadership and the prosecutor’s office, Chikov advises.