Paper wants politics out of police force
Koper - The newspaper Primorske Novice suggests that under the outgoing government, the police has been abused for political purposes in a similar ways communist authorities persecuted post-WWII those who had different beliefs than the ruling elite. It says "it's urgent that the police is taken out of the grip of politics".
"Two years of brutal dismissals, appointments, scolding and the police commissioner's nodding to politics ... is proof of how quickly the police of a democratic country can return to its original form, the form it took during the one-party system."
After WWII, National Protection units persecuted not just criminals but all those who had different beliefs from the Communist Party, the paper says.
It adds that the Interior Ministry leadership has expected the police to treat anti-government protesters in a similar way over the past two years.
The police is no scout organisation. The safety of every citizen, the safety of their property and the general well-being depend on its effectiveness.
Following the experience of the past two years, it is therefore urgent to take the police out of the hands of political influence.
This could be done either by a different appointment procedure for police commissioner and heads of regional police departments, or by reforming its organisation.
"Because we don't know which election winner will disappoint us (again) and prepare the ground for autocratic ... structures that see the police as National Protection," the paper says under the headline Do We Want National Protection Again?