The decision, pronounced on Wednesday, occurs in the aftermath of the prohibition of the parent structure of the organization.
Le Monde with AFP
A Moscow court ordered, Wednesday, December 29, the dissolution of the human rights branch of the Memorial NGO, the day after the ban on the parent structure of this iconic organization. The Memorial Human Rights Center, a separate legal entity from that dissolved on Tuesday, is accused of breaking a controversial law on “foreign agents” and for making the apology of “terrorism” and “extremism”.
The Prosecutor found that “violations of the rights and freedoms of persons as well as repeated and gross violations to Russia’s laws constitute a ground of dissolution”. In recent years, the Human Rights Defense Center has been involved in the defense of human rights or political prisoners, of which it makes a documented census. Wednesday’s hearing was held in the aftermath of the Supreme Court of International Memorial and its regional antennas, a decision that marks a strengthening of the critical vote of the Kremlin.
“If we dissolve, this will confirm that the prosecution for political purposes have become a systemic reality of our lives,” said Alexandre Cherkassov, who leads the Human Rights Defense Center. Founded in 1989 by Soviet dissidents, including the Nobel Peace Award Andrei Sakharov, Memorial had given a mission to shed light on the Goulag and the crimes of the Soviet Union. After the end of the USSR, it also engaged in the defense of human rights.
During the two wars of Chechnya, she illustrated by documenting the abuses of the Russian forces and their Chechen allies. In 2009, Natalia Estemirova, responsible for the NGO in this region of the Caucasus, had been murdered. The crime has never been elucidated.
“Agent from abroad” since 2013
NGO supporters consider that Pouinian power wants to remove Memorial to ignore the history of Soviet repressions, the Kremlin anymore at heart to celebrate the heritage of the heroism of the USSR against the Nazis. that the memory of the millions of victims of Stalin. The NGO accuses the authorities to complicate its work, limiting access to the archives and identities of the performers of the Soviet purges.
The lawsuits against Memorial and its Human Rights Defense Center, within two separate judicial proceedings, illustrate the extent of repression in Russia of Vladimir Putin. The year 2021 was marked by the imprisonment of the main opponent of the Kremlin, Alexei Navalny, then the prohibition of his movement for “extremism”, but also the designation of many NGOs, independent or simple media individuals as “agents of the ‘foreigner “. This qualification, which reminds the “enemy of the people” in the Soviet era, constrained the persons or entities targeted to submit to tedious administrative procedures and to mention this status in each of their publications – this is the case for The Human Rights Defense Center since 2013.
It is precisely because they reproached Memorial International for failing to have failed in certain publications that the Russian authorities have obtained its dissolution. The same complaint is done at the Human Rights Defense Center, but the prosecution also accuses him of having made the apology of “terrorism” and “extremism” by publishing a list of names of prisoners containing those of members religious or political groups prohibited in Russia.