Demonstrators to be disbanded with shields and stun guns

• 14.03.2012, 14:43

The interior troops of the Internal Affairs Ministry of Belarus have been given new means to fight common people.

On March 14 journalists were demonstrate new special equipment and non-lethal weapons for different units of the Belarusian Internal Affairs Ministry’s interior troops, BelaPAN informs.

Representatives of mass media have seen in particular hand electroshock weapons, plastic shields with built-in stun guns, manufactured in Belarus; German SIG Sauer 9 mm handguns. The latter had been bought for SOBR (special rapid reaction unit) of the Internal Affairs Ministry interior troops. The handguns have entered service about half a year ago, riot shields – about a year ago, said officers of the special task forces to BelaPAN agency.

As the deputy minister of the Interior Affairs Valery Hajdukevich told to journalists at the meeting, recently almost half of the vehicle park of interior troops’ engineer and pyrotechnic groups has been renewed. Volkswagen minibuses have been bought. Russian “Gazel” minibuses had been considered, however this idea was dropped on technical reasons. And purchasing of non-Russian minibuses is to be continued, the commander said.

Valery Hajdukevich has also noted that means of transport in which persons serving sentence are transported under guard of interior troops, are equipped with GPS tracking units now, which allows real time determining of their precise location.