Russian court orders ban on second rights group in as many days
MOSCOW — A Moscow court ordered the closure of one of Russia’s most prominent human rights groups Wednesday, a day after its parent organization also was shut down.
The ruling by Moscow’s City Court will close the Memorial Human Rights Center, which keeps a tally of political prisoners. On Tuesday, the country’s Supreme Court ordered the shuttering of Memorial International, which was founded in 1989 by Soviet dissidents to preserve memories of Soviet repression.
The shutdowns reflected President Vladimir Putin’s determination to control the narrative of some of the most painful and repressive chapters in Russian history and keep dissidents at bay. Since January, the Kremlin has accelerated a campaign to stifle dissent, clamping down on independent media, religious groups and political opponents.
Memorial’s list of political prisoners stands at 435 names — twice as many as the government acknowledged in the late Soviet period. Prosecutors accused the human rights group of justifying “international terrorist and extremist organizations” by including on its list imprisoned members of religious groups such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
That list includes Alexei Navalny, a prominent opposition leader, who was poisoned with what Western intelligence agencies believe is a Russian-made nerve agent.
Prosecutors said the group promoted “biased materials on human rights topics” that were used to discredit “the structure of the Russian Federation.” They said members of the organization had “participated in all protest movements” and “supported all protests aimed at destabilizing the country,” including Navalny’s Anti-corruption Foundation.
Prosecutors also accused the group of failing to comply with a 2012 “foreign agent” law, the same reason the Supreme Court gave Tuesday in closing down Memorial International. The law requires designated organizations to meet onerous financial reporting rules and to add a disclaimer to all public communication warning it was produced by a “foreign agent.”
The human rights center was named a “foreign agent” in 2013, shortly after the law came into effect, while Memorial International, its parent group, was designated as such in 2016.
Nuclear treaty conference: An international conference on a landmark Cold War-era nuclear treaty is poised to be postponed because coronavirus cases are surging in the host city of New York.
Already delayed multiple times because of the pandemic, the Non-proliferation Treaty Review Conference was to start Jan. 4 at the United Nations’ headquarters, bringing delegations from around the world together to discuss the state of the 1970 pact.
But after the U.N. expressed concerns Monday about the resurgent virus and said the world body couldn’t staff an in-person conference, participants were reluctant to proceed, conference President-designate Gustavo Zlauvinen said in a letter Tuesday to the group.
He said the event would be put off if participants didn’t tell him otherwise by Wednesday evening.
It’s not yet clear how long the gathering would be delayed, or whether all or some of the events might be held virtually. Participants are due Thursday to discuss what to do.
Flare-up in Gaza: An Israeli and three Palestinians were wounded Wednesday in the first exchange of fire in months on the Gaza frontier. The violence came as Israel announced measures aimed at improving living conditions in the occupied West Bank after a rare meeting of top officials.
Israel has announced a number of measures in recent months it says are aimed at easing tensions, but they have had little visible impact on the ground, where attacks by both Israeli settlers and Palestinians are on the rise. There have been no peace talks in more than a decade.
The Israeli military said a civilian near the security fence was slightly wounded by gunfire from Gaza, and that it responded with tank fire at multiple military positions manned by Hamas. The militant group has ruled the territory since 2007.
The Gaza Health Ministry said three Palestinians were wounded, without saying if they were civilians or fighters.
Earlier, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz approved a series of measures aimed at improving relations with the Palestinians after hosting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at his home in Israel late Tuesday.
It was the first time Abbas met an Israeli official inside the country since 2010. The two discussed security coordination between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, which administers pockets of the occupied West Bank.
Vaccine pass in France: The government of France is forging ahead with efforts to increase pressure on unvaccinated people to get coronavirus shots, as the country reported 208,000 new COVID-19 cases Wednesday — a record fueled by the omicron variant.
Health Minister Olivier Veran on Wednesday defended a government plan to allow only the fully vaccinated to enjoy continued access to places such as restaurants, cinemas, theaters, museums, and sports arenas.
The pass will also be required on regional trains and buses and domestic flights.
Veran said at a parliamentary hearing that the record number of infections means that more than two French people are testing positive every second for COVID-19. Veran estimated that about 10% of the French population has been in contact recently with a person infected with the virus.
France has vaccinated 77% of its population and is rushing out booster shots, again to combat omicron. But more than 4 million adults remain unvaccinated, including more than 1 million people over age 65.
More than 3,400 COVID19 patients were hospitalized in intensive care units Wednesday, an increase of 10% over the past week. The figure represents two thirds of ICU beds occupied by people infected with the virus. But the number is lower than during the previous peak in the spring, when about 6,000 COVID19 patients needed intensive care.
The government wants the vaccine pass in place by mid-january.
Balmy Alaska: In a holiday season of extreme weather events, this one stands out: a 67-degree Fahrenheit reading in Alaska.
The reading Sunday, from a tidal station on Kodiak Island, set a statewide temperature record for December, the National Weather Service reported.
The temperature at the station, in southern Alaska, reached the 60s again Monday before falling to 55 degrees Tuesday morning, Rick Thoman, a climate specialist with the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy in Fairbanks, said on Twitter.