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In Russia, police perform frequent spot checks of passports and other documents that all adults are required to carry. The checks are justified by authorities as controls on illegal immigration, crime, and terrorism. But in a country where roughly 25 percent of the population claims to have experienced police abuse, these spot checks serve equally well as opportunities for the police to extract bribes, pick-pocket, or otherwise shake down residents, migrants, and tourists. The most likely targets of police harassment are those who, according to police judgment, appear to be immigrants from the Caucasus and Central Asian regions of Russia and the former Soviet Union -- in particular, the war-torn and destitute breakaway republic of Chechnya.
Photo: Vitaly Belousov/Itar-Tass
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