This decision comes at the end of a year marked by the growing repression of people, NGOs and media perceived as critics of Vladimir Putin’s regime.
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It was a pillar of the fight against repression in contemporary Russia. The Russian Supreme Court ordered, Tuesday, December 28, the dissolution of the NGO Memorial. 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 Poutine, in power for almost twenty-two years.
The judge said she had “acceded to the request of the prosecution” to dissolve this NGO. In early November, the Russian prosecution requested the dissolution of Memorial, accusing it of having violated “systematically” the obligations of its status as“foreign agent”. This label designates organizations considered to act against Russian interests by receiving foreign funds.
Memorial has been investigating the Soviet purges for more than thirty years and identifying contemporary repressions, in particular those of the regime of Vladimir Putin. The NGO promised Tuesday afternoon to find “legal means” to continue its activities. “Memorial, it is a need of the citizens of Russia to know the truth about its tragic past, about the fate of several million people. And no one will be able to ‘liquidate’ this need.”, assured the NGO in a press release.
A few hours later this decision of the Russian Supreme Court, thehe French Foreign Minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, expressed his “indignation” and his “concern”. “The dissolution of Memorial International is a terrible loss for the Russian people who have the right to benefit from a fair knowledge of their past and from a society founded on the fundamental values upheld by the Council of Europe”, he said in a statement.