"Committee against Torture" challenges court's decision on its registration as "foreign agent"

The public organization "Committee against Torture" has filed an appeal to the Nizhny Novgorod Regional Court against the decision of the Soviet District Court on the refusal to recognize illegitimate the resolution of the Regional Prosecutor, on the basis of which the organization had been included in the register of non-profit organizations (NPOs) acting as foreign agents.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that in January, the Russian Ministry of Justice (MoJ) included the "Committee against Torture" in the register of NPOs acting as foreign agents. That was done on the basis of the resolution of the Prosecutor's Office of the Nizhny Novgorod Region received by the MoJ on December 29, 2014. The Prosecutor's Office considered that the "Committee against Torture" was engaged in political activities.

The NPO treated the resolution as one "rendered on the basis of misinterpretation of substantive law" and went to court, the "RAPSI" (Russian Agency of Legal and Judicial Information) reports.

On April 3, the judge of the Soviet District Court of Nizhny Novgorod refused to grant the motion to recognize illegitimate the resolution of the Prosecutor's Office. Today, lawyers of the "Committee against Torture" challenged the decision, the NPO's website reports.

Members of organizations the "Committee against Torture" treat the court's decision as unlawful, since the court's conclusions fail to correlate with the circumstances of the case. This was declared by Dmitry Kazakov, the Assistant to the Chair of the interregional public organization "Committee against Torture", who represented the NPO's interests in court.

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