Russia Supreme Court Dissolves Memorial International, Closing Human Rights Center in Moscow

Russia’s Supreme Court ordered the dissolution of Memorial International on December 28, and on December 29 a Moscow court dissolved Memorial’s Center for Human Rights, according to Amnesty International France.

“30 years in existence”

Amnesty International France

Ouest-France reported that on December 29 the Russian judiciary ordered for the second time in two days the closure of Memorial’s structures, despite a wave of international indignation.

Amnesty International France

Amnesty International France said the verdict meant “The NGO Memorial will no longer exist,” and it framed the closure as a direct attack on “the rights to freedom of expression and of association.”

Ouest-France linked the shutdown to Memorial’s role cataloging human rights violations in contemporary Russia, including political prosecutions targeting opponents of Vladimir Putin, and it said the Supreme Court had also banned Memorial International’s structures investigating Soviet purges.

France 24 said a roundtable in Paris on Friday with the FIDH assessed Memorial’s work as “made all the more necessary by the war in Ukraine,” and it described Memorial’s objective since its ban in Russia at the end of 2021 as documenting the crimes of the Soviet state and helping its victims.

France 24 quoted Emilia Koustova, director of Slavic Studies at the University of Strasbourg and a member of Memorial France, saying “The crimes of the Soviet regime have not been condemned in Russia,” and it added that authorities have a sense of total impunity.

El País

Le Grand Continent argued that Memorial’s battle for history and memory has been accompanied by the fight against human rights violations and state violence, and it said the work has faced “Russia’s terrible aggression against Ukraine” and “the total falsification of the past and the present by Putin’s government.”

Radio France connected the Memorial ban to Putin’s aim to control history, stating that “With Memorial, the Russian President wants first to control the writing of history.”

Amnesty International France said prosecutors argued Memorial had repeatedly violated the law on the “foreign agents,” noting that the law requires any Russian organization receiving foreign funding and engaging in activities that can be considered political to mark its publications with the label “foreign agent.”

“In Paris, the Memorial NGO, dissolved by Moscow and co-laureate of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, continues its fight to defend the victims of Russia's crimes, whether current or past”

France 24

Amnesty International France also said Memorial had been added to the foreign agents registry in 2016 and is accused of regularly failing to indicate this label in its publications, while it called the use of the law “an outright attack on civil society.”

Le Temps reported that on December 27 Yuri Dmitriev, director of Memorial’s branch in Karelia, was sentenced to 15 years in prison, and it said the grounds were the pornographic nature of photos taken for the medical follow-up of his disabled daughter.

Le Temps framed the broader context as “the liquidation of Memorial and a rewriting of history,” and it said the European Court of Human Rights and many governments denounced the situation as Memorial was being shut down and its researchers’ access to archives was threatened.