Belarus' internal affairs minister: Police will help train people's militia

The police will help train people's militia, Belarus' Minister of Internal Affairs Ivan Kubrakov told the STV TV channel, BelTA informs.

“We took part in the development of the law on people's militia. Belarus already has a law on volunteers helping law enforcement. There are citizen patrols at enterprises, organizations that are registered with district administrations. As for people's militia, they will be directly supervised by the police. Local authorities will have lists of those who want to help keep their homes, families and friends safe, who want to help guard certain facilities. The police will provide assistance in teaching them how to use weapons and perform their duties. So far, many people have expressed their desire to join people's militia. People's militia can report not only to the chief of the district police department, but also to the community police officer. The community police officer will supervise a people's militia unit as he/she is familiar with the neighborhood and enjoys people trust,” the minister said.

Ivan Kubrakov stressed that Belarus has developed a system that regulates this process. “While developing the law, we saw what was happening in Ukraine, when boxes of weapons were brought to a store to be distributed among everyone who wanted. It is clear that weapons also fell into the hands of criminals, they were resold, and so on. We have developed an entire algorithm, an appropriate system, which means that each person will be subjected to a background check. Weapons will not be up for grabs. Records will be kept of what is handed over and to whom. We will check those who will get weapons. We will check whether or not they have a criminal record. These should be reliable people, and we will keep track of them,” he said.