14:01, 24 July 2015

CaT decides to self-liquidate

A broken down door in the CaT's office. Grozny, June 3, 2015.

At the today's conference, activists of the Committee against Torture (CaT) spoke for the liquidation of their organization. In the near future, a respective application will be sent to the Russian Ministry of Justice (MoJ), Igor Kalyapin, the Chairman of the CaT, has stated.

This January, the Russia's MoJ included the Interregional Public Organization "Committee against Torture" into the registry of the non-profit organizations (NPOs) that perform functions of a foreign agent; this decision of the MoJ was made on the basis of the presentation of the Prosecutor's Office of the Nizhny Novgorod Region; the presentation was received by the organization on December 29, 2014.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on April 3, the Sovetskiy District Court of Nizhny Novgorod dismissed the application, which asked to invalidate the above presentation. On April 24, the lawyers of the CaT appealed against the above decision to the Nizhny Novgorod Regional Court; however, on July 8 this complaint was dismissed.

As noted by Mr Kalyapin, the members of the organization should decide on the format they will use to continue their human rights activities in the future.

Let us remind you that on June 3 in Grozny unidentified persons attacked the office of the Joint Mobile Group (JMG), which includes CaT's activists. According to eyewitnesses, the police arrived at the place of the pogrom only after the attackers smashed the car of rights defenders and ruined the office and the apartment of the JMG.

The CaT complained about the police's inaction; however, the Russia's Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) found no inaction during the pogrom of the JMG's office, says the answer signed by Alexander Savenkov, Deputy Interior Minister, which was received by the Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation.

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