Members of the Committee for Prevention of Torture conducted a number of activities dedicated to the UN International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. The activities were held in Moscow, Yoshkar-Ola and Orenburg. Tomorrow a press-conference with participation of Igor Kalyapin will be held in Nizhny Novgorod.
On 25 June in Moscow human rights defenders organized a photo exhibition where the stories of people who passed through tortures were presented.
In addition, film «286» made by lawyer of the Committee for Prevention of Torture Evgeniy Chilikov together with camera man Aleksey Novikov was presented at the event.
On 26 June pickets were held in Orenburg and Yoshkar-Ola.
Danila Chendemerov shares his impressions of the picket: «Apart from us, some of our applicants were participating, too, including Anatoliy Yadykov, whose son died after the examination fight when he was applying for service in the Police Special Force. The majority of the passers-by did not walk away but attentively read our posters with extracts from the oath of the Investigative Committee, the Ministry of the Interior and the Prosecutor’s Office. We willingly communicated with the public, told them about our activity in the Mari-El Republic and other regions. I saw that many felt genuine concern about their fellow-citizens who suffered from tortures».
«Despite the fact that it was Sunday, there were quite a lot of people in the center of Orenburg. Many came and asked about the history of this day, about the torture phenomenon as such, about what is to be done should one face this. We were especially impressed by our conversation with an elderly woman, who told us that for more than forty years she had been living next to the police department and often heard shouts of people who were tortured there. She said that she did not hear such shouts for some time now, though she still lives there. She thanked us for what we do», – Timur Rakhmatulin described.
