Russia targets rights group
Bid to shut down prominent organization for good
MOSCOW • A Russian prosecutor Thursday called on the Supreme Court to abolish one of Russia’s most prominent human rights groups, the International Memorial Society, part of a comprehensive crackdown on all such groups in the country.
The International Memorial Society is renowned for researching and memorializing the Soviet-era executions and imprisonment of dissidents. Its human rights wing, Memorial Human Rights Center, exposes current abuses by Russian authorities and played a leading role in revealing military atrocities during the two Chechen wars in the mid-1990s and early 2000s.
Under the tightening authoritarian rule of President Vladimir Putin, Memorial has been under pressure for years, but the bid to close it down shocked global human rights advocates and observers of Russia.
Both wings of the organization have been declared “foreign agents,” and must meet onerous requirements, including putting “foreign agent” warnings on all published materials, as well as tough reporting rules on finances.
Prosecutor Dmitry Vagurin on Thursday accused the International Memorial Society of deliberately and systematically concealing its foreign agent status by failing to tag all items with the necessary labels, Russian media reported.
He argued that liquidating the group was a “proportionate” measure. The organization argues it has taken strenuous efforts to meet requirements.
The prosecution argued Memorial “violated the rights and freedoms of citizens, namely the right to freedom of information.”
Memorial advocate Grigory Vaipan told the court that prosecutors had found “an insignificant share” of Memorial’s materials that did not carry the label.
Human Rights Watch spokeswoman Tanya Lokshina recently called the move to shutter Memorial an “outrageous assault on the jugular of Russia’s civil society,” and European diplomats have expressed their alarm.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemned the move on Twitter earlier this month, saying, “Russia must end the lawsuits and stop misusing its law on ‘foreign agents’ to harass, stigmatize, and silence civil society.”
German President Frank-walter Steinmeier said Monday he was “stunned” by the moves to close the organization, while the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said it would be an “irreparable loss.”
The Memorial Human Rights Center was declared a “foreign agent” in 2014.
Lokshina said Russian authorities last year broadened the law on foreign agents, meaning almost any activist or civic organization could be declared a foreign agent. Authorities use the law as a tool of repression “to restrict space for civic activity and penalize critics, including human rights groups,” she added.