Team Against Torture Only Russian Human Rights Organization with Branch in North Caucasus

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 22 – Despite continuing Russian government efforts to shut it down across the country, the Team against Torture continues to function and is today the only human rights organization which maintains a branch office in the North Caucasus, Olga Sadovskaya says.

            The Team’s lawyer says that the branch there is also under attack, often not just by the courts but by means of violent attacks on its representatives but that it continues to operate so that no victim must be allowed to feel he or she is alone (kavkazr.com/a/ugrozy-obyski-napadeniya-yurist-komandy-protiv-pytok-o-rabote-na-severnom-kavkaze/32693822.html).

            Moreover, Sadovskaya continues, that explains as well why it continues to pursue cases in the European Court for Human Rights and to use the media as much as possible to tell about its work. It is critically important that Russian citizens not feel that they are all alone against an all-powerful state.

            She says that the Committee against Torture will do everything possible to continue its activities in the North Caucasus and the south of Russia” because “it is important to us to work precisesly in those regions where the use of force against individuals is frequent and which at times serve as ‘testing grounds’ for the working out of such criminal methods.”