In 1998, the Prosecutor’s Office of the Nizhny Novgorod region responded to human rights defenders’ application concerning the police torture, with the letter, in which, among other things, it is stated: «no „facts“ of applying „torture“ are revealed on the territory of the region».

In essence, this document provided the basis for creation of the Nizhny Novgorod Committee Against Torture in 2000. Since that time, the Nizhny Novgorod Prosecutor’s Office stopped using the word «torture» with quotation marks, and the notion itself became an established fact. Without quotations, either.

In the course of time, the Committee Against Torture started to work in other regions of Russia, too, using its own procedure and method of public investigations.

In the period from 2015 to 2022, the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation four times entered the CAT into the register of organizations performing the functions of a foreign agent. Each time it led to the liquidation of the organization.

On June 11, 2022, the the Committee against Torture was liquidated as an organization. However, the team of human rights defenders continues to work to eradicate torture in Russia as the Crew Against Torture.

Over 21 years of work, The CAT has received more than 3178 reports of human rights violations in Russia, has achieved compensation payments of more than 297 million rubles to victims, has won 78 cases in the European Court of Human Rights and has convicted 159 law enforcement officers guilty of torture and ill-treatment.