Because of the Nobel Peace Prize
Moscow judiciary takes away Memorial headquarters
10/07/2022 9:23 p.m
Apparently, the Nobel Prize for the Russian human rights organization Memorial is a thorn in the side of the Kremlin regime. In the evening, a court expropriated the Moscow office of the banned association. The makers still don’t want to give up.
The Russian human rights organization Memorial, which won the Nobel Peace Prize, is now also losing its headquarters in Moscow following its dissolution. A court in the Russian capital awarded the building to the Russian state in proceedings criticized as being politically motivated. Memorial announced that it would continue its fight for human rights and celebrate the Nobel Prize.
The Nobel Committee also gave the award to Belarusian human rights lawyer Ales Byalyatski and the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties. “We are grateful to the Nobel Committee for this honorable award,” said Memorial in the evening after hours of wrangling with the judiciary for its headquarters. The judiciary had dissolved the organization last year. Despite the pressure from the authorities, the work should continue “under all circumstances” – according to the model of founding father Andrei Sakharov, Memorial said. The physicist Sakharov, also known as the inventor of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975.
“Memorial’s idea and mission are people, history, help for the victims of repression, the fight against state violence,” the statement said. “Memorial – it’s a network, it’s people, it’s a movement.” Work is ongoing in Russia and Ukraine, as well as in other countries. Like other Russian civil rights organizations, Memorial is currently experiencing “strong pressure”. “But it is not possible to ban memory and freedom.”
Happy about the Nobel Prize
Memorial is thinking of Byalyatsky in Belarus, as well as other political prisoners in the country and colleagues working in Ukraine under the conditions of Russian war of aggression. The Nobel Peace Prize comes at a time when Russia is waging a war of conquest in Ukraine and is destroying rights and freedoms in its own country. That is a danger to the world.
Memorial co-founder Irina Scherbakova described this year’s Nobel Peace Prize as an important signal for the people in Russia who are critical of the Kremlin regime and the Ukraine war. The decision of the Nobel Committee is a happy event for many of them, said Scherbakowa in Jena in the evening. Because many people in Russia are afraid of massive repression and police violence. But there will be a time after President Vladimir Putin, stressed Scherbakova. “I very much hope that Russia will eventually find a way out of this moral, political catastrophe and into democracy and freedom.”