Torture is a huge Russian problem. But the topic of torture is so painful and frightening that society prefers to ignore it. Influencers – popular actors and musicians who participated in the project Police Cartoons, helped us to raise awareness about this crucial and taboo issue. Their reputation and popularity allowed to draw an attention to this project, that prompted PR topic for discussion.

One in ten Russians has experienced torture or threats of violence at the hands of law enforcement (by "Levada-Center" — Russian independent, non-governmental polling and sociological research organization). But the topic of torture is so painful and frightening that society prefers to ignore it. Furthermore, many people believe that torture remained in the Middle Ages. Our goal was to attract attention to the difficult issue of torture and increase donations to the Committee Against Torture. Committee Against Torture is an organization that provides support to victims of torture, from assisting them and their families and conducting independent investigations to representing them at the European Court of Human Rights.

The goal of this project is to demonstrate that torture is now a systemic problem in Russia. We emphasize the aspect of the problem that becomes apparent almost every time when a victim tries to bring the perpetrators to justice. The police officers get off with explanations that feature their own versions of how the victims got injured. These explanations often sound completely unrealistic and absurd. And yet, the system prefers to believe the police rather than the victims. We turned these explanations into cartoons to draw public attention to this fact.

We’ve compiled an archive of cases handled by the Committee against Torture and studied the explanatory notes of police officers describing how the victims got their injuries. We’ve used real-life quotes from these notes in our script to stress the reliability of our information. The film is aimed at people who care about human rights but have little information about how widespread torture is in Russia. An important part of our approach was involving influencers whose reputation and public image helped break the taboo surrounding this subject.

Our aim was to choose a style that wouldn’t be too realistic, so that the audience wouldn’t be put off by the extreme cruelty of the things we’re talking about, but at the same time would carry across our message – that torture is a rampant problem. That’s why we decided to keep the descriptions of torture cases and related injuries but visualize them as cartoons. This contrast between the cruel and the funny helped us to keep the audience focused. The film was published as a special project by Meduza, a popular independent news outlet, together with an editorial article featuring experts and actual torture victims. This approach helped us to shed light on the issue from different angles and present it in more detail.

The project became a stepping stone in breaking a taboo surrounding torture and making it the subject of public discussion. The video has reached around 2 million viewers across various social networks. The campaign was covered by various Russian media and major bloggers. Since the release of the project, the number of donations has increased by 57%. From January to June 2020, 1 469 335 rur were transferred to the Committee Against Torture (the project was released on June 29, 2020), from July to December, 2 314 000 rur were transferred to the Committee Against Torture.