“Memorial” was installed in Geneva – Kommersant
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Members of the human rights society “Memorial”, which was liquidated earlier in Russia, established an “international association” in Geneva. It included 15 organizations of the Russian network, and the board of the new “Memorial” declared their desire to continue “the work and the best projects” of the “International Memorial”. “We will continue to work in Russia as much as possible,” Kommersant was told at the board of the new association.
The establishment of the international association “Memorial” in Geneva was reported in Telegram channel the Memorial Society (the NPO itself was previously recognized as a foreign agent, and later liquidated by the court at the suit of the Ministry of Justice). The founders of the structure were 15 organizations of the Russian human rights network. The board included 11 people, including the head of the French branch of Memorial, the historian Nicolas Werth, the Italian historian and researcher of the history of the Gulag, Andrea Gullotta, and the former co-chairman of the Russian Memorial, Oleg Orlov. The International Association “will continue the work and the best projects of the International Memorial, which was liquidated at the turn of 2021/2022,” the society’s Telegram channel says.
The history of “Memorial” began in 1987 with the creation of the Moscow public group “Memorial”; Academician Andrei Sakharov was one of the organizers and the first honorary chairman. In 1992, the International Historical, Educational, Charitable and Human Rights Society “Memorial” (“International Memorial”) was established. By 2021, it included 74 organizations (including ten outside the Russian Federation) engaged in educational work, perpetuating the memory of victims of political repression, human rights activities and assistance in finding information about relatives who disappeared during the Great Terror. The work was mainly carried out by the Human Rights Center (HRC) Memorial in Moscow. Since 2014, the HRC has been included in the register of foreign agents; International Memorial was included in the register in 2016.
In December 2021, the Prosecutor General’s Office demanded through the court to liquidate the “International Memorial” for the systematic violation of the law on foreign agents (lack of labeling on books and publications on the network). A similar lawsuit was filed against HRC Memorial. The Moscow prosecutor’s office also pointed out “justification of extremism” among the reasons for the liquidation, including because of the maintenance of a database of modern “political prisoners”. In addition, members of the “Veterans of Russia” movement complained that “Memorial” “falsifies the facts of Nazi crimes” and adds “accomplices of Nazism” to the bases of Soviet repressed. In 2022, the court liquidated the HRC Memorial and International Memorial. In the “Memorial” itself, the demand for the liquidation of NPOs was associated with the publication of “execution” archives and data on the involvement of NKVD officers in the terror.
In October 2022, the Tverskoy District Court of Moscow drew in the state revenue a room in the center of Moscow, owned by the research and educational center “Memorial”. Right before this trial became known on awarding Memorial the Nobel Peace Prize for 2022. As early as March 2023, searches were carried out in Moscow at the homes of lawyers and historians of Memorial. The metropolitan department of the TFR initiated a case against an “unidentified circle of persons” about the rehabilitation of Nazism. In addition, a criminal case was initiated on discrediting the RF Armed Forces against the co-chairman of Memorial, Oleg Orlov.
Mr. Orlov assured Kommersant that, within the framework of the international association established in Geneva, human rights activities would be carried out in Russia as well. “We didn’t stop it,” Oleg Orlov added, admitting that it would be “very difficult and very difficult.”
Irina Shcherbakova, co-chair of the Memorial International Association, one of the founders of the Russian Memorial, told Kommersant that the organization “will continue to work as far as possible in Russia”: “Working conditions are deteriorating every day. But this topic still cannot be closed, and our history cannot be deleted.
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