There is no “Memorial”, but there is a complaint – Newspaper Kommersant No. 203 (7404) dated 11/01/2022

A complaint has been filed with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) against the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation on the liquidation of the International Memorial. The country’s oldest human rights organization was abolished at the suit of the Prosecutor General’s Office in December 2021, which did not prevent it from becoming a Nobel Peace Prize laureate in October 2022. The complaint to Strasbourg refers to five violations of the European Convention on Human Rights – from interference with the right to freedom of association to “discrimination” and “punishment for criticizing the authorities.”

A complaint to the ECHR on the liquidation of the “International Memorial” was sent by the lawyers of the Center for the Protection of Human Rights “Memorial”. Recall that the “International Memorial” was established in 1987 (one of the organizers and the first honorary chairman was Academician Andrei Sakharov). By 2021, the structure has accumulated 74 human rights and educational NGOs. One of them was the human rights center (HRC) “Memorial”, which, among other things, was working with the archives of the repressed and compiling a modern “list of political prisoners”. In 2014 Memorial Human Rights Center was included in the register of foreign agents, and two years later the International Memorial also got there. And in 2021, the Moscow Prosecutor’s Office and the Prosecutor General’s Office achieved judicial liquidation of both “Memorials”. The reason was “violation of the law on foreign agents” – in particular, the absence of “foreign agent” markings. Representatives of Roskomnadzor and the Ministry of Justice said about the “rudeness and repeated violations of the law”, which “are not questioned.”

It should be noted that since 2013, the ECtHR has received more than 70 complaints against “foreign agency” legislation and issued a general decision on them in June 2022. Then Strasbourg concluded that the Russian legislation on foreign agents “does not meet the requirements of the convention.” In the same decision, the ECtHR concluded that Memorial International was recognized as a foreign agent “on the basis of defective provisions” of the law. The organization conscientiously labeled its websites and materials, but not social media posts, believing that the posts “do not constitute ‘material’ within the meaning of the law.”

In October 2022, the “Memorials” got Nobel Peace Prize for “defending the right to criticize authority and defend the fundamental rights of citizens.” And instead of the liquidated HRC “Memorial”, the Center for the Protection of Human Rights (CRHR) “Memorial” was created. Lawyers of the CRHR filed a complaint with the European Court.

The co-author of the document, Zhargal Budaev, believes that the Russian authorities violated five articles of the convention against Memorial at once, including the “right to freedom of expression” and “the right to freedom of association.” State interference with these rights “was not prescribed by law and is not necessary in a democratic society,” the complaint says.

The “right not to be subject to repeated punishment” was also violated, according to Memorial’s lawyers. After all, the absence of marking was confirmed in court by earlier administrative fines. We are talking about ten episodes of violation of the “production and distribution of materials” by an organization performing the “functions of a foreign agent” (part 2 of article 19.34 of the Code of Administrative Offenses). In 2019, the courts fined International Memorial under this article for a total of 4.5 million rubles, after which the organization announced that the shortcomings had been eliminated. In a complaint to the ECHR, lawyers insist that the liquidation is a “repeated punishment” for the same violation of the Code of Administrative Offenses. Earlier, the RF Armed Forces rejected this argument.

Two more points of the complaint are related to “discrimination” and “punishment for criticizing the authorities.” Discrimination is justified by the fact that the punishment “does not threaten those who do not receive foreign funding and do not criticize the authorities.”

The document was registered with the ECHR, but it is too early to talk about accepting the complaint for work, says Zhargal Budaev. He recalled that despite the actual termination of relations between the Russian Federation and the Council of Europe, the court in Strasbourg continues to consider complaints against Russia if the alleged violation of rights occurred before September 16, 2022. The Russian authorities have a different approach: President Vladimir Putin signed a law on non-execution of ECtHR judgments issued after March 15, even if the complaint itself was filed before the rupture of relations with the CoE. “Although the Russian government ignores the decisions of the ECtHR, it is important to confirm and highlight systemic problems in the country,” Zhargal Budaev believes. “There is hope that in the future they will still be fulfilled.”

Maria Starikova