What threatens Memorial?

The Memorial Human Rights Center may be liquidated, and the organization's employees may face criminal prosecution. The Ministry of Justice accuses human rights activists of undermining the constitutional order, calling for the overthrow of the government, and changing the political regime. The Ministry of Justice sent its findings to the Prosecutor General's Office.

Memorial is an international human rights, scientific and educational movement that includes dozens of organizations. “Memorial” was created in the late 1980s and united people who wanted to preserve the memory of millions of victims of Soviet repression - information about the crimes of the USSR authorities became widely available only at this time. Gradually, Memorial became the main center for studying repression and perpetuating the memory of the victims. In the 1990s, members of the movement began to engage in the protection of human rights. Liquidation threatens precisely this part of the movement—the interregional public organization “Memorial Human Rights Center.”

This is not entirely clear. The full text of the document has not been published, but excerpts allow us to draw some conclusions. The inspection report states that the website contains information that the annexation of Crimea was the result of Russia’s military aggression towards Ukraine, and Russian military personnel took part in hostilities on the territory of this country (we are probably talking about the conflict in Donbass). Also mentioned is the publication of Memorial, which talks about the unjust nature of the Bolotnaya case. Apparently, these publications are cited as an example of “formation of public opinion” “on the ongoing state policy by the highest bodies of state power.” According to the Ministry of Justice, Memorial “expresses disagreement with the decisions and actions of these government institutions, the results of the preliminary investigation and the court verdicts in high-profile criminal cases.” It was these actions that the Ministry of Justice considered an attempt to undermine the constitutional order and call for the overthrow of the current government.

Unknown. Memorial's legal director, Kirill Koroteev, believes that employees may face administrative or criminal liability, and the center may face a lawsuit for liquidation. According to the Civil Code, any organization whose actions violate the Constitution can be liquidated by the authorities in court. In 2014, the Ministry of Justice already filed a lawsuit to liquidate the Memorial society due to claims against the charter. But the organization’s employees made changes to the document, and the Supreme Court rejected the application. As for criminal liability, there is not much clarity about what articles we can talk about. The Ministry of Justice accuses Memorial of employees “undermining the foundations of the Constitutional system of the Russian Federation, calling for the overthrow of the current government and a change in the political regime in the country.” Perhaps investigators will decide to classify the activities of human rights defenders under Article 280 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation - public calls for extremist activities. Extremist activity, in particular, is considered to be “a violent change in the foundations of the constitutional order.”

Employees of the human rights center are going to challenge the findings of the Ministry of Justice. They are confident that the department’s actions are politically motivated. Memorial is perplexed at how the employees’ opinion, compiled on the basis of the collected facts, can be considered “undermining the constitutional order.” Human rights activists believe that the Ministry of Justice itself, which accuses human rights activists, violates the foundations of the Constitution.