Russia’s Justice Ministry has filed a lawsuit with the Supreme Court seeking to declare the “international public movement ‘Memorial’” an “extremist organization.” The entry in the court registry was noticed by “Ostorozhno, novosti.”
The case is scheduled to be heard at 11:00 on April 9 in closed session. No other details are provided in the Supreme Court’s registry.
In late 2021, the Supreme Court and the Moscow City Court ordered the liquidation of International Memorial and the Memorial Human Rights Center. The liquidation was initiated by the prosecutor’s office, which said the organizations had violated the law on “foreign agents.”
International Memorial was liquidated on February 28, 2022. The Human Rights Center was liquidated on April 5, 2022; on the same day, the organization’s old website stopped being updated. After that, the Memorial Human Rights Defense Center was created, and updates about the rights defenders’ work moved entirely to social media. On October 7, 2022, Memorial received the Nobel Peace Prize.
The Russian Memorial Human Rights Center was founded in 1987. Among the organization’s founders were Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov and human rights activist Svetlana Gannushkina.