Inquiry into CaT's activities alerts rights defenders

The persecution of the "Committee against Torture" (CaT) and Igor Kalyapin, the head thereof, is a consequence of the work of this organization engaged in investigating human rights violations, including those committed in Northern Caucasus, human rights activists said.

Igor Kalyapin has been summoned and familiarized with the case against the CaT. The Russian Ministry of Justice (MoJ) may recognize the CaT to be a "foreign agent". The case is based on a political study written at the request of an employee of Nizhny Novgorod State University. The application was submitted by Ilya Savinov, a former member of the All-Russian Popular Front (known as ONF), the "Mediazona" reports.

"The study claims that the CaT cooperates with undesirable organizations. A five-year-old example was cited – cooperation with the Czech organization "People in Need"*," said Igor Kalyapin.

However, the "People in Need" was recognized as "undesirable" only three years after it collaboration with the CaT.

In Northern Caucasus, the work of human rights organizations is severely limited, but the CaT went there for investigations, despite the threats addressed to Kalyapin, for example, when they threw eggs at him, said Stanislav Dmitrievsky, the project manager at the Natalia Estemirova Documentation Centre.

"The human rights situation in Northern Caucasus is much worse than in Russia as a whole ... But local authorities wouldn't like any publicity and truth," Mr Dmitrievsky has stated.

He is confident that the CaT, which has held out for 21 years, will find some different format of work in case of closure.