Russia's MoJ adds CaT to registry of "foreign agents"

The Committee against Torture (CaT), which includes the rights defenders working in Chechnya in the Joint Mobile Group (JMG), has been put on the register of non-profit organizations (NPOs, treated as "foreign agents", said the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) of Russia. The head of the CaT Igor Kalyapin stated his intention to appeal against this MoJ's decision in court.

"I was informed that the CaT was put on the register of organizations 'performing the functions of a foreign agent.' Well, we have something to say about it both to citizens and authorities. Be sure we'll do it; so, wait for news," Kalyapin wrote in his page on the Facebook.

Igor Kalyapin has added that the prosecutor's submission, signed by the prosecutor of the Nizhny Novgorod Region, says said the staff of the CaT had publicly disseminated information about the specific adverse facts of the work of the police and of incompetence of the Investigating Committee, "thus trying to change the state policy and, therefore, the CaT is a "foreign agent".

"We'll certainly appeal at court the decision to put our organization on the registry; and should we fail, then, well self-liquidate. For me, working in the status of 'foreign agent' is unacceptable and insulting," the TASS quotes Mr Kalyapin as saying.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.