Human rights activist Igor Kalyapin resigned from his post as head of the Committee against Torture

Human rights activist Igor Kalyapin resigned from his post as head of the Committee against Torture. about this He spoke in an interview.

“I have serious disagreements with members of the Committee’s board regarding work priorities. There was a conflict. This did not suddenly happen, it has been ripening and accumulating over the past year. All this has nothing to do with the story with the Yangulbaevs. Disagreements arose over how the organization should develop further. I believe that it is necessary to engage not only in legal work, but also build socio-political actions on its basis,” the publication quotes Kalyapin as saying.

The human rights activist clarified that his proposals for the development of the organization were approved while they remained proposals. “Everyone has learned to write complaints to the prosecutor, to the court, to the Investigative Committee. And here we need something new: start communicating with some politicians, go to some commissions, interact with some not very pleasant people. My colleagues didn't like it very much. They were just too lazy to do it,” he claims.

Kalyapin's place in the organization will be taken by Sergei Babinets. The human rights activist clarified that he does not intend to leave Russia and remains on the Human Rights Council under the President for now.

At the end of December, unknown people covered the entrance of Kalyapin’s mother with posters “shame on a foreign agent.” Before this, the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, called the human rights activist an accomplice of terrorists.

Kalyapin founded the Committee against Torture in 2000. The organization protects victims of police violence in Russia. In December 2021, journalist Yuri Dud released a film about torture in Russian colonies and police departments. One of the main characters was Kalyapin and his colleagues from the human rights organization.