The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the shutdown of Memorial International, Russia’s oldest human rights organisation, for repeatedly violating the country’s controversial “foreign agent” law.
Memorial International was founded in 1987 by prominent Soviet dissidents as Russia’s first human rights organisation that focused on archiving and documenting mass executions and imprisonments in Stalin-era gulag camps. In fact, Memorial continues to highlight historical abuses under the USSR.
During Tuesday’s Supreme Court hearing, the lawyer from the Prosecutor General’s Office of Russia, Alexei Zhafyarov, argued that Memorial promotes a misleading image of the USSR as a terrorist state by “speculating on the topic of political repression of the 20th century.” Zhafyarov added that the organisation is hiding the “fact that it is a foreign agent” with the aim of influencing internal politics in Russia.
Memorial’s lawyer, Tatiana Glushkova, told CNN that the group would challenge the court’s decision. Meanwhile, talking to the German news network DW, Pavel Andreyev, one of the directors of Memorial International, accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of consolidating power and said, “That’s why they are cracking down on all these independent organisations.”
Human rights groups and democracy advocates have fallen prey to an unprecedented crackdown in Russia, particularly after the imprisonment of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny. The Putin government disbanded Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation on ‘extremism’ charges back in June. Furthermore, on Tuesday, Navalny’s former associates Ksenia Fadeyeva and Zakhar Sarapulov were also arrested on similar charges. Last week, Putin urged Western countries to “turn the page” on Navalny and firmly rejected claims about suppressing civil society.
Several countries and prominent international human rights organisations slammed the court verdict on Memorial International. In a statement, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken extended his support to Memorial, saying, “The people of Russia and the memory of the millions who suffered from Soviet-era repression deserve better.” US ambassador to Russia John Sullivan also described the court’s verdict as “a blatant and tragic attempt to suppress freedom of expression and erase history.”
Likewise, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the shutdown of Memorial is a “terrible loss for the Russian people.” The German Foreign Ministry also condemned the ruling, saying it was “more than incomprehensible,” and added that it goes against Russia’s international human rights protection obligations. International human rights group Amnesty International, meanwhile, said that the verdict represents “a grave insult to victims of the Russian Gulag,” arguing that the government’s efforts to shut down Memorial is a “blatant attack on civil society.”