RUSSIA. Moscow. 25 November 2021.

A Russian prosecutor called on the Supreme Court to abolish one of Russia’s most prominent human rights groups, the International Memorial Society, part of a comprehensive crackdown on all such groups in the country.

The International Memorial Society is renowned for researching and memorializing the Soviet-era executions and imprisonment of dissidents. Its human rights wing, Memorial Human Rights Center, exposes the current abuses by Russian authorities and played a leading role in revealing military atrocities during the two Chechen wars in the mid-1990s and early 2000s.

In a joint statement on November 18, the two Russian Nobel Peace Prize winners, Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, and the editor in chief of the Novaya Gazeta newspaper, Dmitry Muratov, said attempts to close Memorial have “caused anxiety and concern in the country, which we share.”

“The long-term activities of Memorial have always been aimed at restoring historical justice, preserving the memory of hundreds of thousands of those killed and injured during the years of repression, and preventing this from happening now and in the future. The continuation of this work meets the interests of society and the Russian state,” Gorbachev and Muratov said. “We urge the Attorney General‘s Office to withdraw the claim from court and settle the claims out of court,” they added.