The Ministry of Justice included the "Committee against torture" in the register of "foreign Agents"

The Ministry of Justice of Russia introduced the “foreign agents” committee against torture in the register. It was included in the list of unregistered associations, according to the website of the department.

This is a human rights organization that is engaged in a public investigation of cases of torture, founded in 2000. In 2015, the Ministry of Justice already included the "Committee against torture" in the register of NKO-Agent NKO-Agents, after which the organization was liquidated as a legal entity.

The documents of the Ministry of Justice say that the "unregistered organization" (the same committee) was created in 2016 in Nizhny Novgorod. The organization is involved in the representation of the applicant’s interests in the investigation and court, and assistance in obtaining compensation, as well as, if necessary, conduct medical rehabilitation measures.

The Committee stated that they would continue to work, and referred to a report on the work of the project over the past three months. Human rights activists report that for three months their applicants paid more than 12.2 million rubles of compensation for cases in the ECHR and Russian courts.

• The legislation on "foreign agents" in Russia appeared back in 2012. The law allowed the Ministry of Justice to recognize non-profit organizations by “foreign agents” if they receive financing from abroad and are engaged in “political activities”. The criteria for which such activities are determined are not clearly defined in the law, which allows the authorities to persecute organizations working in the field of education, culture, healthcare, ecology, and the protection of human rights.
• The Russian Ministry of Justice is conducting four lists of foreign agents at once, adding to them NPOs, journalists and public figures, who, according to the government, receive foreign financing and are political activities.
• The State Duma in April 2022 developed a new bill on "foreign agents". He will have to unite the currently existing registers of "foreign agents" (four of them) into one. If the law accepts that this will allow the authorities to assign the status of a “foreign agent” without financing from abroad, and subject to “support or foreign influence”.