Moscow, February 26: The mayor of a major city in Siberia sparked outrage in Russia on Friday after expressing regret in an official meeting that the authorities did not have the power to shoot the homeless.
Anatoly Mikhalev, mayor of the city of Chita, told members of the local parliament without apparent irony that the homeless were a major problem for everyone and it was unfortunate they could not be shot.
As state television rounded on Mikhalev for comments that provided a nasty echo of the arbitrary executions of the Stalin era, he tried to explain away the scandal Friday by saying the remarks were a “bad joke” .
“The homeless — this is a problem but unfortunately we do not have the right to shoot them,” Mikhalev told members of the local parliament on Thursday. Mikhalev was slammed by the Kremlin’s human rights envoy Vladimir Lukin. “This is a person who has not heard about what a human being is, about what human rights are,” Lukin said.
The homeless face appalling conditions in Russia amid a harsh climate and social indifference.
-Agencies