Shunevich: Police is punitive agency

The head of the Internal Affairs Ministry said that police is ready to combat “social parasites.”

Ihar Shunevich, Belarus’ Interior Affairs Minister told so to journalists on January 19, commenting on the policies aimed to fight “social parasites,” BelTA informs.

“It would not be a mistake to say that today the Interior Affairs Ministry is one of the most efficient instruments of the state in the fight against such a negative phenomenon as social parasitism. Though local government agencies, and appropriate commissions have equal authorities. And we are working in cooperation with them. As the practice shows, serious results could be achieved through joint efforts only,” the minister said at the meeting of the Interior Affairs Directorate of Vitsebsk regional executive committee.

Shunevich noted that the Interior Affairs Ministry has mostly unpopular instruments in its armoury, and police is an agency which is used to guarantee law and order, and security, and in the first place it is a punitive agency. And social parasitism often “borders on social, every-day-life, medical issues, rehabilitation in the society of persons who have lost social ties in the society.”

In this context the Interior Affairs Ministry’s agencies have often been engaged in issues of preventive work, Ihar Shunevich stressed.

“And now we shall receive an instrument which will allow us to perfirm these functions more efficiently,” the minister said.