The Russian Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the dissolution of the Memorial NGO, pillar of the defense of the fight against repression in contemporary Russia and guardian of the memory of the victims of the Gulag.
This decision comes at the end of a year marked by the growing repression of people, NGOs and media perceived as critics of President Vladimir Putin, in power for almost 22 years.
Judge Alla Nazarova said “to accede to the request of the Public Prosecutor’s Office to dissolve International Memorial, its regional branches and other components”.
In question, the non-respect of obligations resulting from its statute of “agent of the foreigner”. This label, which recalls that of “enemy of the people” of the Stalinist USSR, designates organizations considered to be acting against Russian interests and receiving foreign funds.
“It is a harmful, unfair and very harmful decision for our country”, reacted the defense lawyer, Maria Eïsmont.
After the verdict, read quickly in a monotonous voice, several people shouted “shame! “, ” shame ! In the courtroom. The lawyers then spoke in court, saying they would appeal.
Then the police urged NGO supporters and journalists to leave the area around the building. At least six people were arrested, before and after the verdict, according to AFP journalists.
“I feel really bad,” 29-year-old designer Anna Vialkina said with tears in her eyes. “As I am a descendant of victims of repression, I experienced all of this very intensely,” she added.
“It is a tragedy for civil society, it was the only association which helped people to know the fate of their relatives” victims of repression, added Leonid Bakhnov, a 73-year-old writer.
“Insult”
Memorial, whose role and rigor are recognized in the West, has been investigating the Soviet purges for more than thirty years and identifying contemporary repressions, in particular those of Mr. Putin’s regime.
“A power that is afraid of memory will never reach democratic maturity,” said the Memorial of the Nazi death camp in Auschwitz on Twitter, while the NGO Amnesty International denounced an “insult” to the memory of the victims of the Soviet camps.
At the beginning of November, the Public Prosecutor’s Office had requested the dissolution of Memorial, accusing it of having “systematically” violated the administrative obligations linked to its status as “foreign agent”.
In court on Tuesday, prosecutor Alexeï Jafiarov accused the NGO of “creating a false image of the USSR as a terrorist state”, of “sullying the memory” of the Second World War and of seeking to “rehabilitate Nazi criminals ”.
In another case, the prosecution demands the dissolution of its Center for the defense of human rights, accused of condoning “terrorism and extremism”, in addition to violations of the law on “foreign agents”. In this case, a hearing is scheduled for Wednesday before a court in Moscow.
Year of repression
Memorial is one of the latest victims in the long list of NGOs, opponents and the media that have fallen under prosecution in recent months.
At the beginning of the year, the authorities jailed for two and a half years the number one opponent of the Kremlin, Alexeï Navalny, then banned his organization in June for “extremism”. Several of his supporters were arrested again on Tuesday.
Dozens of people, NGOs defending human rights or sexual minorities and independent media have been recognized as “foreign agents” or accused of extremism.
Memorial’s troubles illustrate the clash between two visions of Russian history, 30 years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, described by Vladimir Poutine as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century.
Founded in the twilight of the USSR by dissidents, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Andrei Sakharov, Memorial’s mission was to shed light on the millions of victims of Soviet crimes.
For its defenders, it now undergoes the increasingly accentuated promotion by the Kremlin of a vision of history glorifying the power of the USSR and minimizing the excesses of Stalinism.
For its activities, Memorial has long been under pressure and has already paid a heavy price. In 2009, his manager in Chechnya, Natalia Estemirova, was kidnapped and then executed.
One of its historians, Yuri Dmitriev, was sentenced Monday to 15 years in prison for a “sexual assault” case denounced as a staged coup intended to punish him for his research into Soviet terror.