On April 28, searches were carried out at the office of the human rights organization “Team Against Torture” in Nizhny Novgorod and at the home addresses of three of its employees. The reason was a criminal case initiated in North Ossetia, which was handled by CPT lawyers.
Employees of the Center for Combating Extremism came to the office early in the morning, and the doors were opened for them by employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations. The search of the office took place without incident, in the presence of lawyer Artem Nikitin, human rights activists reported in their Telegram channel. At home, Olga Sadovskaya, head of the international legal protection department of the checkpoint, had a laptop, phone and 80 hunting cartridges belonging to her ex-husband seized.
The searches and subsequent interrogations of CPT lawyers are related to a criminal case being investigated in North Ossetia. Human rights activists do not disclose details in the interests of their applicant - a person involved in the case, who reported to the checkpoint that he was subjected to torture.
On April 14, searches were also carried out in the office of the North Caucasus branch of the checkpoint in Pyatigorsk. Then the Department of Internal Affairs officers also unsuccessfully searched for documents related to the North Ossetian case. During the investigation, law enforcement officers seized an old laptop and a flash card. The head of the branch, Ekaterina Vanslova, said that the search took place correctly, in the presence of witnesses, within the framework of the law.
The head of the public investigations department at the checkpoint, Oleg Khabibrakhmanov, believes that “law enforcement officers are using the criminal case filed against our applicant to put pressure on one of the few human rights organizations that continue to work in the Russian Federation.”
The “Committee against Torture” was created in Nizhny Novgorod in 2000, its branches also operate in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Krasnodar, Orenburg and the North Caucasus. The Ministry of Justice has included the organization on the list of “foreign agents” several times. On June 11, 2022, the MROO “Committee against Torture” was liquidated as an association. However, a team of human rights activists continues to work to eradicate torture in Russia. During their work, they received more than 3,533 reports of human rights violations in Russia, achieved the award of more than 317 million rubles in compensation to victims, won 90 cases in the ECHR and achieved the conviction of 167 law enforcement officers guilty of torture and ill-treatment.
On the eve of the search of her home, Team Against Torture lawyer Olga Sadovskaya became a laureate of the Moscow Helsinki Group award in the category “Protection of the rights of prisoners and other vulnerable groups.”