Today at 6 p.m. in Svoboda square in Nizhny Novgorod Special Police Forces have unlawfully detained chairman of the Interregional Committee Against Torture Igor Kalyapin who was present in the square to observe a Strategy 31 rally. Two days ago the authorities refused to authorize the public action and Igor Kalyapin suspected that law enforcers might use unlawful violence against its participants. For this reason Igor Kalyapin and one more worker of the ICAT were present at the site of the rally as observers.  The CAT has a video of the detention.  

It must be noted that the police has detained 25 people altogether, 22 of them have managed to escape from the police vehicle unnoticed while law enforcer were distracted by the turmoil of the rally. Three the most law-abiding detainees, including Igor Kalyapin, have refused to do so.

At the present moment the detainees are apparently located in a law enforcement department.

We would like to emphasize that this detention is unlawful and unjustified, in our opinion. It is quite obscure why the SPF have detained Igor Kalyapin who was an independent observer, not even a rally participant.