Supreme Court of Russia liquidates Memorial, the leading human rights organization

The Supreme Court of Russia today ordered the liquidation of Memorial, the main human rights organization in this country and the voice of the Soviets who have suffered retaliation.

The ruling, which satisfies the request of the Prosecutor’s Office that accused the NGO of creating “a false image of the Soviet Union as a terrorist state,” dissolves both the organization of historical memory and the defense of human rights that make up Memorial International.

The prosecutor, Alexei Zhafiárov, accused Memorial of “distorting” the memory of the victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War (1941-45) and to rehabilitate Nazi criminals “on whose hands is the blood of Soviet citizens.”

“Why now we, the descendants of the victors, must observe the attempts to rehabilitate the traitors to the homeland and the Nazi accomplices? (…) Surely because someone pays for it,” he said.

“Shame!”, was the shout that could be heard in front of the Supreme building, where about a hundred people gathered to support Memorial.

Before knowing the ruling, Memorial’s defender, veteran lawyer Guenri Reznik, considered that the Prosecutor’s Office is aware that his claim is unfounded and “illegal”, and warned that the trial is “a test of the values ​​that determine life in a state of law “.

Next, Reznik announced that he will appeal a conviction and, if necessary, appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

Meanwhile, the director of Memorial International, Yan Rachinski, assured that the ruling does not imply the cessation of the activities of the NGO, since there are many organizations attached to it that are not registered or do not appear as legal entities.

“Suspending the activities of Memorial is not within the possibilities of the Prosecutor’s Office,” he stressed.

The leader of the opposition Yabloko party, Grigor Yavlinski, called the ruling “a political decision.”

30 years of defense

The Russians awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Mikhail Gorbachev (1990) and Dmitri Murátov (2021), wrote in November to the Prosecutor’s Office to withdraw the lawsuit against Memorial.

Gorbachev and Murátov noted that Memorial’s activities since its founding in 1991 have been aimed at restoring historical justice and preserving the memory of hundreds of thousands of people retaliated during the Soviet Union.

The Prosecutor’s Office turned to the Supreme Court to dissolve Memorial due to its alleged violations of the Constitution and the failure to fulfill its functions as a foreign agent, a category to which it belongs since 2016.

Its members accuse the Kremlin and the state security organs of try to prevent further investigation of crimes committed during the USSR and since 1991especially since the current president, Vladimir Putin, came to power in 2000.

Memorial, who received the Sakharov Prize from the European Parliament in 2009 and has been a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize on several occasions, counts among its founders the Soviet scientist and dissident Andrei Sakharov, Nobel Peace Prize in 1975, father of the hydrogen bomb and precursor of the defense of human rights in this country. (I)