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Demonstrators Give Chocolate to Police With Badges

Law enforcement forces were renamed to their tsarist era name "Politsia" from the Soviet "Militsiya" as part of reforms enacted last year. Andrei Makhonin

Dozens of people participated in a rally called "The Day of Document Verification" Sunday to call attention to regulations governing police badges that came into force last year.

According to the law, a badge with identification numbers must be worn by all on-duty police officers. Each badge, which identifies the region and personal number of an officer, is to be destroyed when the officer whom it identifies leaves duty.

"Our goal is to to make it so police officers are not anonymous and that in case something happens it is easy to find out the name and position of a given officer," demonstrator Ivan Ninenko told RIA-Novosti.

Activists handed out chocolate to the officers patrolling the event who were wearing the badges.

One officer wearing a badge at the event said it had only been given to him one month ago.

Permission was given to hold a rally for 300 people at metro station Ulitsa 1905 Goda, though less people attended the event. No incidents have been reported.

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