A Moscow court yesterday heard a case against Memorial International’s Human Rights Center, a day after the Russian Supreme Court outlawed the main organization of the human rights group.
The ruling against Memorial International on Tuesday sparked an international outcry, with the US, France and the Council of Europe condemning its “liquidation.”
Founded in 1989 by Soviet dissidents, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov, Memorial is Russia’s most prominent rights organization.
Photo: Reuters
It has chronicled Stalin-era purges, and also campaigned for the rights of political prisoners and other marginalized groups.
The Supreme Court ordered the closure of Memorial International, which maintains the network’s extensive archives in Moscow and coordinates the work of regional offices.
Prosecutors accused Memorial of failing to mark all of its publications with a label of “foreign agent,” the tag for organizations that receive funds from overseas.
The prosecution also said that Memorial “creates a false image of the USSR as a terrorist state and denigrates the memory of World War II.”
Yesterday, prosecutors asked the Moscow City Court in a new hearing to dissolve Memorial’s Human Rights Center for failing to use the “foreign agent” label on its publications, and for allegedly justifying terrorism and extremism.
The trials signal the end of an era in the country’s post-Soviet democratization process, which began 30 years ago this month.
A Memorial lawyer said on condition of anonymity that they did not doubt that the court would yesterday rule to also shut down Memorial’s Human Rights Center.
“It’s obvious,” the lawyer said.
In a statement on Tuesday evening, Memorial International vowed to appeal and find “legal ways” to continue its work.
“Memorial is not an organization. It is not even a social movement,” the statement said. “Memorial is the need of the citizens of Russia to know the truth about its tragic past, about the fate of many millions of people.”
Memorial’s rights center has campaigned for the rights of political prisoners, migrants and other disadvantaged groups, and highlighted abuses, especially in the turbulent North Caucasus region, which includes Chechnya.
The center has compiled a list of political prisoners that includes Russian President Vladimir Putin’s top domestic critic, Alexei Navalny, and members of regional minorities outlawed in Russia, including the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
However, Putin has criticized its work, accusing the group of advocating for “terrorist and extremist organizations.”
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