Dozens of residents of the Penza region say they were forced to sign contracts to be sent to war

Dozens of residents of the Penza region say they were forced to sign contracts to be sent to warAbout 40 people have complained about being forced to sign contracts in the Penza region, Ivan Chuvilyaev, press secretary of the human rights project "Go Through the Woods," told Verstka.

"Four complaints came in, but each involved 10 more people. Dozens, let's say, of people. This is all just from yesterday and as of this morning. Obviously, there will be more complaints to come"

According to Go Through the Woods, in Penza and the city of Kamenka, police detained men on the streets, as well as stopped cars and public transport, moved people into their own vehicles, and took them away to sign a contract. In one district of Penza, a large تجمع of military personnel was spotted, but the human rights advocates note that it was specifically police officers who carried out the detentions.

One complaint says that a drunk man was "picked up by an unmarked civilian vehicle and taken to a police station." There, he was offered a chance to sign a detention report so that he would then be released. In fact, he signed a contract with the Defense Ministry and is now "already a thousand kilometers away from Penza."

One of the first reports appeared on June 17, when a Penza resident posted a video of men near the military enlistment office. In the footage, their female relatives are shouting that the men were beaten and forced to sign a contract.

Aleksei Tabalov, founder of the Conscript School, told Verstka that people in Penza had been forced to sign contracts before as well, but yesterday the situation "blew up" in the media, "because they completely lost all bounds there."

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