Memorial is one of the best-known and most internationally renowned Russian non-government organisations and it has won the Sakharov Prize, the Right Livelihood Award and many other accolades. We object in the strongest possible terms to the politically motivated, manifestly unfounded proceedings against Memorial. The threat of the liquidation of Memorial deals a further, possibly final blow to independent civil society in Russia.
Read this press release in German
On 11 November 2021, Memorial International in Moscow, the umbrella organisation of all Memorial organisations in Russia and beyond, received a summons to appear before the highest court of the Russian Federation on 25 November 2021. The reason for the summons is that the General Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Russian Federation has applied to have the organisation shut down – over “repeated violations of Russia’s legislation on foreign agents”. The Office claims that Memorial has made it clear that it is not prepared to comply with this legislation.
Memorial was founded in 1988 by a group of Russian human rights activists led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov, with the aim of working through the history of Soviet repression, rehabilitating its victims and supporting and monitoring the observance of human rights in the successor states of the Soviet Union.
Memorial is one of the best-known and most internationally renowned Russian non-government organisations and it has won the Sakharov Prize, the Right Livelihood Award and many other accolades. The Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung has worked closely with Memorial for more than 30 years and it remains the Foundation’s most important partner organisation in Russia to this day.
We object in the strongest possible terms to the politically motivated, manifestly unfounded proceedings against Memorial. The threat of the liquidation of Memorial deals a further, possibly final blow to independent civil society in Russia. The Federation is taking a further giant step away from the European consensus of values, as vouchsafed by the European Convention on Human Rights and the Council of Europe. We call upon the German federal government and the European Union to do all in its power as a matter of urgency to protect Memorial and Russian civil society.
Press contact
Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung e.V.
Michael Alvarez Kalverkamp
Press spokesperson
alvarez@boell.de
Tel: +49 (0)30 285 34-202