12 February 2008, 12:08
Hotline on election issues functional in Krasnodar
Krasnodar human rights activists have launched a hotline telephone on the matters related to forthcoming elections. The territorial NGO "Civil Voice" was the initiator.
Mikhail Veligodskiy, its chairman, has explained to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that the telephone is now accessible from 2:00 to 6:00 p.m., but one week prior to the elections it will become round-the-clock.
"We're not a switchboard, therefore, not a single call will be neglected," Mr Veligodskiy says. "Once we get a signal about violations, we contact the Territorial Electoral Commission and we trace the elimination process. Another task is to consult electors."
The hotline works since Monday, on February 11. So far, 3 calls arrived. However, human rights activists think that most of them will come during the elections.
A similar line was functional during the recent State Duma election campaign. Then, territorial voters called up for more than 80 times. The hotline telephone number is 211 07 48 (Krasnodar zone code is 861).
We add that at the All-Russian level a similar project is realized by the "GOLOS" (Vote) organization: any voter can call free of charge to Moscow at 8 800 333 33 50.
Author: Evgeniy Titov, CK correspondent
