The second portrait in the series of 10 HRDs against Torture is: Igor Kalyapin, founder and chair of Russian NGO Committee Against Torture (CAT).
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The main obstacle we have is the same to the reason of torture: lack of effective investigation and absolute lack of will to investigate. Every case is a challenge and we never know for how many years we have to commit ourselves to deal with each of them.
Do you feel threatened because of your activities? Do you face any interference in your work? If this is the case, can you kindly precise.
Recently, we have started to face threats: our lawyers are targeted, some of them are approached by state agents, some of them were arrested, some of them were insulted. I myself now am facing a real threat to be accused of a crime that I have never committed (speaking out of investigational secret).
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Public campaigns (as illustrated in the picture), support of the victims of torture, write support letters, can play a very important role in the fight against torture.
http://www.omct.org/human-rights-defenders/events/2012/12/d22055/
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 
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