The Association of Human Rights Monitors of Law Enforcement have reported worrying, if hilarious, examples of how police departments obtain their statistics, including those on fighting “corruption”.

In Sevastopol two police officers decided they’d had enough of their low salary, etc and announced that they were going to leave. Their boss for a long time simply refused to accept their resignation saying that they were understaffed. That was back in July. Autumn arrived and the men decided that they really had had enough. They found jobs in a security firm and informed their management two weeks in advance that as of 1 October they would not be working for the police.

On 9 October, when the men were already working for a security agency and guarding a site, several cars appeared with police officers from the internal security department and forced the two men to give a written explanation regarding “corrupt activities” (combining work in the police with work in the security agency). The men did not feel inclined to refuse when confronted by so many armed officers.

On 11 October the two men were finally given back their work record book. This stated that they had resigned from 10 October.

The orchestrating of statistics was not yet over. On 26 November the two men appeared at their former work place to collect references. Several cars arrived at the station. Armed men got out and without identifying themselves or their purpose, they detaned the two men with one even having handcuffs put on him. It all looked like they were arresting dangerous terrorists. And was presumably supposed to look like that to the taxi drivers nearby, to members of the public in general. The two men were detained, it transpired, in order to hand them administrative protocols. It was asserted, once again with reference to the period from 1 to 9 October, that they had committed an administrative offence by combining work in a security firm with police duties.

On 26 November the two men made complaints to the Prosecutor’s