The human rights group Committee Against Torture has been declared a “foreign agent” by a Russian judge, who accused the group of trying to change state policy.

It’s become a dreaded label for the NGO sector in Russia since Vladimir Putin introduced a law clamping down on organisations who receive funding from abroad.

But for Committee Against Torture (CAT), the move initiated an perplexing legal process that exposed the contradictions at the heart of the law. By accusing the group of trying to change policy, prosecutors were forced to implicate the state in the use of torture, when it is in fact outlawed in Russia.

In challenging the label, CAT and the court became tangled in a debate – at times leaning on the philosophical – about the hopelessly broad tenets that lie at the centre of the law: over what constitutes “state policy” and “political activity”, terms which have been applied in damaging trials against NGOs on a case-by-case basis.

The group’s founder, Igor Kalyapin, explained the incongruity of the state’s accusation to Russian media: “By the prosecutors’ logic, it turns out that state policy is torture in police departments and the covering up of torture by investigative bodies,” he said.

The human rights organisation was established in 2000 and aims to raise awareness of torture and degrading treatment in Russia. In the past 15 years it has worked on 120 cases of mistreatment and prompted 655 unlawful decisions to be annulled, organisers say. Its investigations have also resulted in 107 officials in the law enforcement agencies being convicted.

If CAT was undermining state policy by uncovering cases of torture, then torture itself must be state policy

But in December 2014, the prosecutor for the Nizhny Novgorod region, Oleg Panasenko, ordered the organisation to register as a “foreign agent”, claiming it had tried to change state policy by broadcasting information about its campaigns and activities.

Panasenko accused the human rights advocates of preparing and distributing “statements, papers and reports” demonstrating “torture is a commonplace occurrence in Russian institutions.”

In spreading such information, the prosecutor argued it was attempting to “attract attention and create negative public sentiment.”

Pussy Riot protesting during the Sochi winter Olympics. The high-profile detainees now run a website detailing the harsh conditions in Russia’s prisons. Photograph: Morry Gash/AP

Contradictions

The accusations raised an interesting legal paradox: as far as the prosecution was concerned, if the organisation could be deemed to be undermining state policy it followed that torture itself must be state policy. The NGO, by this reckoning, qualified as a “foreign agent” because it tried to do this with money received from foreign donors.

In court, Kalyapin asked the prosecution: “What is state policy regarding the use of torture? Does it aim to diffuse the practice or to eradicate it?”



The prosecution replied: “State policy is aimed at the eradication [of torture], of course!”.

Are you saying that ​the​victims of torture constitute a social group? Igor Kalyapin

The opposing sides spent several hours debating the meaning of the term, and a local political scientist, Sergei Ustinkin, was called to give evidence.

Ustinkin concluded that by “defending the interest of a specific social group”, CAT could indeed be deemed to be engaged in political activity.

“Which group’s interests do we defend?” asked Kalyapin, knowing that the prosecutor was unable to formally recognise victims of state torture as a social group.



Ustinkin tried to avoid answering. “Considering that we all have an interest [in seeing that] Russian laws are enforced by members of Russia’s law enforcement agencies”, he said, “CAT performs a very important social and legal function. It defends those who have suffered violence at the hands of the Siloviki [politicians from the military or police services].”



Kalyapin countered: “By your criteria, as far I understand them, to engage in political activity we have to promote the interests of a given social group. Are you saying that victims of torture constitute a social group?”

“Yes and no … well, yes,” Ustinkin said.



Evidence

Kalyapin argued strongly that neither the prosecutors nor the specialist witnesses had put forward a convincing case that CAT was undermining state policy in its investigation and support of victims of torture.

Instead, he said it was the inadequacy of Russia’s investigative committee – and its reports on the use of torture – which were at fault.

Torture is outlawed in Russia, but it is not explicitly defined in the country’s legal code and was traditionally prosecuted under article 286, “Abuse of power”, and article 302, “Coercion to give evidence”. Amnesty International says abuse and degrading treatment is routine in Russia’s prison and police detention.

On the basis of his NGO’s appeals, Kalyapin said that Russian judges had annulled more than 700 unlawful rulings by the investigative committee and prosecutors, who had refused to initiate criminal proceedings relating to torture. It was therefore the judges, he argued, not CAT who were making decisions that criticised state policy.

More than 100 of those rulings were overturned in the very court room Kalyapin was defending his organisation: “It is this court itself which offers a negative assessment of the prosecutors and investigative authorities,” he argued, not CAT.

Kalyapin claimed his organisation’s objective was not to change policy, but to ensure that it was implemented effectively.

But the Russian courts had given him an ultimatum, he said: “Either I stop doing what I’m doing, or [the court] will charge Committee Against Torture on the grounds that I, as its head, am engaged in politics. That is absurd.”



Once labelled as foreign agents, organisations often struggle to gain access to government officials and public institutions. NGOs are also required to mark their publications with the term, and start any oral statement with a disclosure that it is being delivered by a foreign agent.

CAT wouldn’t survive these restrictions, Kalyapin said, and the result of the ruling would ultimately be the organisation’s destruction, he concluded.

The legal process is ongoing: CAT are appealing against the judge’s decision, and the organisation’s work continues. This week the group announced it would challenge the investigative committee’s refusal to allow one of its lawyers to consult Dadaev Zaur, suspected of killing opposition figure Boris Nemtsov, about the maltreatment he is allegedly receiving while in police custody.

A longer version of this interview first appeared in Russian on Novaya Gazeta. Translation by Cameron Johnston