The Russian Supreme Court has ordered the dissolution of Memorial, an NGO that lists human rights violations in armed conflicts in which Russia is involved, but also political persecutions, attacks on freedoms of speech and demonstration.
A new attack on human rights defenders in Russia. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court ordered the dissolution of Memorial, a historic NGO which lists human rights violations in armed conflicts in which Russia is involved, but also political persecutions, attacks on freedoms of speech and demonstration. Officially, the organization pays the non-respect of the obligations going with the statute of “agent of the foreigner” which was granted by the authorities to this group which counts among its founders Andreï Sakharov, Nobel Peace Prize winner. “Dissolving Memorial is worse than a crime. It is a terrible mistake that will backfire on the authorities, ”Vyacheslav Igrunov, one of the founders, told“ The Moscow Times ”.
Prosecutor Alexeï Jafiarov accused Memorial of “creating a false image of the USSR as a terrorist state”, of “sullying the memory” of World War II and of wanting to “rehabilitate Nazi criminals”. False accusations, which are part of Vladimir Putin’s policy of placing the Soviet victory over the Nazis at the heart of Russian history, even if it means ignoring the excesses of the Stalin regime. Last week, a 19-year-old was sentenced to four years in prison for urinating, while drunk, on the portrait of a World War II fighter.
Memorial’s lawyer, Maria Eïsmont, denounced “a harmful, unfair decision”, which does not mark the end of Memorial’s legal troubles: a hearing is due to take place on Wednesday on the dissolution, requested by the prosecution, of the Defense Center human rights organization, accused of condoning “terrorism and extremism” and violations of the law on “foreign agents”. This status created in 2012, which is reminiscent of that of “enemy of the people” during the USSR, is compulsory for any organization receiving funds from abroad and has been applied to many NGOs (Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, but also Russian organizations including that of Alexeï Navalny), media and even Levada (independent polling institute), reducing their field of action and leading to the dissolution of some.
“There are always legislative novelties which restrict the possibility of action”
In 2018, we interviewed Kirill Koroteev, Legal Director of Memorial. He denounced the authorities’ attacks on organizations: “All NGOs are targeted, in particular with the law on foreign agents, the law on undesirable organizations. There are always legislative novelties which restrict the possibility of action. But there are more and more opportunities to communicate with society, and society increasingly realizes that the problems cannot only be solved by monetary policy, but that the police, the system must be reformed. penitentiary, the judicial system… there is more and more interest shown by our fellow citizens in our work. ”
Two opposition figures, Oïoub Titiev and Oleg Sentsov had just received the Vaclav-Havel and Sakharov prizes, awards from abroad which had been received, according to Kirill Koroteev, “with total indifference” by the Kremlin: ” It is very important for Oïoub and for Oleg that their cases are heard, at least in Europe, but also in Russian society. They are both well known, especially Oleg, and this is an important gesture of international solidarity. For the authorities, it is not international gestures that count. This is precisely what is happening in Russia, in which direction Russian society is moving. ”
The situation is similar three years later: the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the editor-in-chief of the opposition newspaper “Novaya Gazeta” Dmitri Muratov (together with the Filipino investigative journalist Maria Ressa) and the European Parliament awarded the Sakharov Prize to Alexeï Navalny, detained since January and his return from Russia after several months of convalescence in Germany following the poisoning attempt he suffered in the summer of 2020 in Siberia. A prestigious award symbolizing concerns about respect for human rights in Russia, for which the Kremlin said it had “no respect”.
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