Seven members of the Civil Society Council Institutions and Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation will be present as observers at the court hearing in Nizhny Novgorod on 3 April 2015. As we have previously reported, examination of INGO «The Committee Against Torture» application on declaring illegal the citation of the Nizhny Novgorod region Prosecutor Oleg Ponasenko on rectifying the violations of the federal legislation will take place on Friday in the Sovetsky District Court. It is referred to the citation based on which the Committee Against Torture was included in the list of non-commercial organizations performing the functions of a foreign agent.

In accordance with the law on non-commercial organizations (part 6 article 2 of the Federal law dated 12 January 1996 N 7-FZ), the activity aimed at changing the state policy is considered to be political activity of the non-governmental organization.

The Prosecutor’s citation mentioned, among other things, as an example of political activity aimed at changing the state policy, the fact of our organization informing the public audience and the state authorities representatives about the illegal violence in the police and of these incidents’ inefficient investigation of by the Investigative Committee bodies.

However, since neither torture nor inefficient investigation of such facts is the state policy in our country we cannot agree with the Nizhny Novgorod region Prosecutor that our actions were aimed at its changing.

The Committee Against Torture will be represented in court by Igor Kalyapin, the Chairman of the organization, his assistant on legal and analytical work Dmitry Kazakov, and lawyer Ramil Akhmetgaliyev.

The following members Civil Society Council Institutions and Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation will be present during court proceedings in the capacity of observers:

– Lev Sergeevich Ambinder,
– Evgeny Aleksandrovich Bobrov,
– Elena Vasilyevna Masyuk,
– Leonid Vasilyevich Nikitinsky,
– Mara Fedorovna Polyakova,
– Vladimir Vasilyevich Ryakhovsky,
– Shablinsky Ilya Georgiyevich.