“The decision is to close Memorial International and its regional subsidiaries,” the NGO announced on its Telegram account. Just before, Judge Alla Nazarova said she accepted “the prosecution’s demand” to dissolve it.
The decision against Memorial, which has great prestige outside Russia, is part of the repression against those who criticize the Kremlin, which has accelerated in 2021, the year that has seen the closure of independent media and NGOs and the dismantling of the jailed opposition movement Alexéi Navalny.
“It is a disastrous, unfair decision,” reacted defense attorney Maria Eismont. “Closing Memorial International returns Russia to its past and increases the danger of (new) repressions,” he had previously estimated before the court.
The prosecution called in early November for the dissolution of Memorial International, the key structure that coordinates the organization’s network in Russia, accusing it of having “systematically” infringed the obligations of his status as “foreign agent”
This label, reminiscent of “enemy of the people” during the Soviet Union, designates organizations recognized as guilty of acting against Moscow’s interests by receiving foreign funds.
All those who are qualified in this way must indicate their status as an “agent of the foreigner” in all their publications, under penalty of stiff fines, and undergo burdensome administrative procedures.
In parallel, in another court case, the prosecution demands the closure of the Memorial Center for the Defense of Human Rights, accused of apology “of terrorism and extremism”, in addition to violations of the law on “agents from abroad.”
In this other case, a hearing is scheduled for Wednesday before a Moscow court.
Lawyers for the NGO, which has already paid significant fines for violations of the law on “foreign agents”, denounce unsubstantiated, disproportionate and political persecution.
Created in 1989 by Soviet dissidents (including the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov), Memorial began a meticulous work of documenting the Stalinist crimes and the Gulag camps, and continued his work in defense of human rights and political prisoners.
This NGO also investigated Russian abuses during the wars in Chechnya and, more recently, on paramilitaries from the “Wagner” group, considered as the armed wing of Russia abroad, something that the Kremlin denies.
In 2009, Natalia Estemirova, head of the NGO in the Caucasus region, was assassinated. The crime was never solved.
Supporters of the organization believe that the government of Vladimir Putin wants to suppress Memorial to silence the history of Soviet repressions, because the Kremlin prefers to celebrate the heritage of the heroism of the USSR against the Nazis instead of the memory of the millions of victims of Stalin.
On Monday, a Russian court increased the prison sentence of prominent Gulag historian and member of the Memorial Center for the Defense of Human Rights, Yuri Dmitriev, to a total of 15 years in prison for a case of “sexual assault” that, according to his supporters, he was mounted to punish his work on the time of Soviet terror.
Source From: Ambito
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