Russia’s Supreme Court has ordered the country oldest human rights watchdog closed for refusing to trace the Kremlin line that it was a “foreign agent”.
Judgment Against Memorial International–which fight for human rights in contemporary Russia while also investigating Soviet repressions–came despite more than 138,000 people who signed the petition to save the group, with Mikhail Gorbachev and Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitry Muratov among those demanding that the authorities back down.
However, the Prosecutor General’s Office only doubled down, demanding the Memorial’s liquidation for allegedly failing to properly display the controversial “foreign agent” label on its website and published documents. . The label has long been seen as a tool for political repression against groups critical of the Kremlin.
Yan Rachinsky, the organization’s head, announced after Tuesday’s ruling that he would appeal the decision and go to the European Court of Human Rights, if necessary.
While it’s clear the organization has long been on the Kremlin’s radar, the order to shut down the group has sparked outrage in court. At least 200 Memorial supporters defied December’s extreme temperatures to support the group. Several protesters are said to have been detained following the ruling, and chanted “shame!” broke out in the courtroom as the decision was read out.
The Prosecutor General’s office complained that Memorial “creates a false image of the Soviet Union as a state of terror, while bleaching and rehabilitating Nazi criminals.”
However, supporters say the group has provoked the wrath of the Russian authorities by doing the opposite. This group has long been seen as crucial to combating the whitewashing of Josef Stalin and the Stalinist secret police, a trend that has spread in Russia in recent years, and has led to concerns about amendments. entire history under Vladimir Putin.
The group sought to preserve the memory of the victims of Stalinist horrors and warn against letting them out of history — a fact that seems to have hit the authorities.
Based on Moscow Times, a state prosecutor against Memorial in court did nothing to conceal his disdain for the group’s surveillance of Soviet-era abuses, asking: “Why are we? , descendants of the victors, should repent and be ashamed, instead of boasting of our glorious past?”
The group has also documented abuses in Chechnya, as well as Russia’s growing list of political prisoners in recent years, including Alexei Navalny and other members of the opposition.
Many see the closure of this group as the final nail in the coffin of Russian civil society.
Veteran human rights activist Lev Ponomaryov, in a blog post shortly after Tuesday’s ruling, said the decision meant “that in [year of] 2022, the repression will be unleashed to the maximum. “
“Happy New Year, future victims of repression!” he title the blog post.
In an open letter written in mid-November, dozens of prominent Russian figures warned the group’s demise would mark one of the most adverse events of the 21st century.
“The disappearance of the Monument in Russia will become a symbol of the profound moral decline and definitive symbolic estrangement of the Russian man from the civilization of the 21st century,” the letter said. write.
“The wounds that have not healed in the 30 years post-Soviet are bleeding again.”
