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The trial of the international historical and educational society “Memorial”
The Prosecutor General’s Office filed a lawsuit to liquidate International Memorial with the Supreme Court at the end of November. According to the department, the organization systematically violated the law on “foreign agents”, namely, did not put the appropriate label on the materials.
In total, the lawsuit listed 20 administrative violations, the total amount of fines for them exceeds 4.5 million rubles. In addition, the lawsuit of the Prosecutor General’s Office states that International Memorial, by not marking its publications, violated the European Convention on Human Rights and UN conventions, in particular, Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Human rights activists themselves admit that some of the materials were not labeled, but they argue that the violations were not systematic, and the organization itself did not refuse to label its publications even after paying the fines, but continued to release materials without the label. In addition, there are no victims or established harm in the case.
Tatyana Glushkova, senior lawyer at the Memorial Human Rights Center, compares the punishment of liquidation for such formal violations with a 20-year prison term for crossing a road in the wrong place. According to her, the resolution of the plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, the documents of the PACE and UN Committees say that the liquidation of NPOs should be used only as a last resort, when the violations committed by the organization cannot be corrected.
In general, International Memorial considers the lawsuit of the Prosecutor General’s Office for liquidation to be a political decision.
Four prosecutors are involved in the process, the eldest of whom is Aleksey Zhafyarov, deputy head of the Prosecutor General’s Office. Alla Nazarova is the judge.
The trial of the Russian human rights center “Memorial”
The subject of the claim against the Russian “Memorial” is the same as against the international one – the liquidation of the organization. The only difference is that the lawsuit to liquidate the human rights center was filed by the Moscow prosecutor’s office and the Moscow City Court. “The organization demonstrates persistent disregard for the law, does not ensure the publicity of its activities, prevents proper public control over it, which grossly violates the rights of citizens, including reliable information about its activities,” the prosecutor’s office said.
The lawsuit of the Moscow prosecutor’s office says that the organization has repeatedly been brought to administrative responsibility for publishing materials on its social networks without marking the status of a “foreign agent.” It lists eight administrative protocols on such violations in 2019, the total amount of fines for them amounted to 1.6 million rubles.
In addition, the Russian “Memorial” is accused of “justifying the activities of members of international extremist and terrorist organizations.” Prosecutors carried out a linguistic examination of the materials of the human rights center about Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Artpodgotovka movement and the Hizb ut-Tahrir organization. Members of these movements are persecuted in Russia, and Memorial believes that the criminal cases against them are illegal and political in nature. The prosecutor’s office saw this as a justification for extremism and terrorism.
Thus, the prosecutor’s office insists that the human rights center has grossly and repeatedly violated the Russian Constitution and its federal laws. The prosecutor’s office asks the court to liquidate the human rights “Memorial” and all its structural divisions.
The case in the Moscow City Court is being considered by judge Mikhail Kazakov.
Courts for opening archives
In early December, the Supreme Court of Russia recognized the presidential decree as lawful, on the basis of which information about the NKVD officers involved in the repression was classified. The Supreme Court made such a decision after considering the claim of the historian Sergei Prudovsky. A scientist involved in mass repression of former employees of the Chinese Eastern Railway, asked to declare illegal the provisions of the decree No. 1203 “On approval of the list of information classified as state secrets” dated November 30, 1995. The historian noted that the presidential decree was drawn up in such a way that it allows the NKVD workers to be classified as counterintelligence officers, whose personal data are not subject to disclosure.
On the basis of this decree, the FSB directorates for the Ivanovo and Tula regions refused to provide Sergei Prudovsky with access to the archives of the NKVD for 1937-1938. They stated that disclosing the names of employees could “incite national, racial or religious hatred or enmity.”
Prudovsky sought to disclose the names of the NKVD officers involved in the case of Tatyana Kulik, who was shot in 1937 as a “Japanese spy.” Kulik was posthumously rehabilitated. The lawyer Marina Agaltsova had two main arguments in court. First, according to the law on state secrets, the crimes of civil servants cannot be classified as secret. Secondly, the law on rehabilitation says: the state condemns terror.
The President was represented by the FSB in the Supreme Court. According to them, the abolition of the provisions of the decree endangers the country’s defense capability. And since the employees of the NKVD were not convicted by the court, it means that there is no evidence that they worked illegally.
Courts for the right of the repressed to return home
In early November, the Russian Supreme Court refused to accept a class action lawsuit against the State Duma of the “children of the GULAG” represented by Memorial. The case was returned to the court registry without giving a reason.
Children of victims of Soviet repression filed a class action lawsuit against parliament, demanding that its inaction be declared illegal. The State Duma does not comply with the decision of the Constitutional Court, according to which children of the repressed, born in a camp or in exile, have the right to receive housing where the family lived at the time of the repression.
The lawsuit was joined by 23 people aged 64 to 89 years, another 74-year-old plaintiff died shortly before the filing of the document. The lawsuit states that the State Duma’s inaction to implement the decision of the Constitutional Court prevents people from returning to their former place of residence and receiving housing there. Citizens are seeking to return to Moscow, St. Petersburg, Oryol and Rostov regions, Krasnodar and Stavropol regions, as well as Crimea.
Back in 1991, Russia adopted a law “On the rehabilitation of victims of political repression”, which secured for the repressed and their children the right to priority housing in the cities where they lived before the repressions. In 2004, the regions were given the right to establish additional restrictions on the provision of housing for victims of repression. For example, in Moscow, the “children of the GULAG” are put in a general queue with an average duration of 25 years.
In December 2019, the Constitutional Court took the side of three elderly women who were seeking compensation for housing in Moscow. He demanded to make the necessary changes to the legislation. In the summer of 2020, the government submitted to the State Duma a bill on preserving the powers of the regions in the issue of housing allocation. In practice, this meant that the children of the repressed would still end up in the general queue.
Case in the ECHR on the abolition of the law on “foreign agents”
Memorial’s lawsuit is pending at the European Court of Human Rights, in which a human rights organization demands to declare illegal the Russian law on “foreign agents” itself. According to the organization, he violates the European Convention on Human Rights. The Prosecutor General’s Office, to which Vladimir Putin delegated the function of representing Russia in international courts, acts as the defendant on behalf of Russia.
In mid-November, Council of Europe Secretary General Maria Peichinovic-Buric said that the Russian Federation had not responded to repeated calls from the Council of Europe to repeal the law on “foreign agents”. According to her, the liquidation of Memorial will deal “a devastating blow to civil society.”
Harassment of Memorial employees
In August, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the Russian authorities violated the article on the right to life in the murder of a human rights defender Natalia Estemirova in 2009. The court acknowledged the lack of an effective investigation, but found the state’s guilt in the crime unproven. According to the decision of the ECHR, Russia must pay the sister of the murdered 20 thousand euros.
Natalya Estemirova worked at the Memorial Human Rights Center and investigated cases of abductions, torture and extrajudicial executions in Chechnya. She was abducted near her home in Grozny on July 15, 2009. On the same day, her colleagues from Memorial reported the abduction to the Chechen Interior Ministry and the prosecutor’s office. Human rights activists found witnesses who saw Estemirova being pushed into a white Lada model VAZ-2107. In the evening of the same day, the body of a human rights activist with gunshot wounds was found in the vicinity of the village of Gazi-Yurt, Nazran district of Ingushetia, near the federal highway “Kavkaz”.
In 2017, the ECHR recognized the responsibility of the Russian authorities for the abduction in 2007 in Ingushetia of the chairman of Memorial Oleg Orlov, who came to Nazran to cover protests against the actions of the security forces. The ECHR awarded the applicants compensation of more than 82 thousand euros for inhuman treatment and lack of investigation of the crime, unlawful imprisonment and violation of the right to protect property.
In June of this year, Orlov complained to the ECHR about threats from the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov. Kadyrov has repeatedly called for murder, imprisonment and intimidation for insulting honor on the Internet. “Those who violate the harmony between people are engaged in gossip, discord, if we do not stop them, killing, imprisoning, frightening, nothing will work,” Kadyrov said. According to him, it is impossible “to leave a person who offends honor, even if” the whole world burns with a blue flame, the laws of all countries will be violated. “
At the moment, the courts of Chechnya are considering the refusal of the Investigative Committee to check Kadyrov’s words about the need to kill those who write “gossip on the Internet.”
In 2018, the trial of the head of the Grozny branch of Memorial was held in Chechnya Oyub Titiev… He was charged with drug possession. Titiev pleaded not guilty and claimed that the security forces planted drugs on him. On March 18, 2019, the Shali City Court of Chechnya sentenced him to four years in prison; in June 2019, he was released on parole. In 2018, a fire broke out in the Memorial building in Nazran. Human rights activists were sure that their office was set on fire, and linked this with the detention of Titiev.
In 2020, the Supreme Court of Karelia sentenced the head of the local branch of Memorial Yuri Dmitriev by the age of 13 in a strict regime colony. He was found guilty of sexual assault against his underage adopted daughter. Dmitriev pleaded not guilty, his defense continues to appeal against the verdict. Dmitriev’s case under other articles was returned for new consideration, which is now continuing in Petrozavodsk.
As the newspaper “Project” wrote, the persecution of Dmitriev may be behind the presidential aide and former FSB general Anatoly Seryshev, who may have personal scores with the historian. In 2011, Seryshev headed the FSB of Karelia, where he fought “dissent” while Dmitriev criticized Russian policies and at the same time was looking for the burial places of victims of Stalinist repression in Sandarmokh. It was during the years when Seryshev headed the Karelian FSB that the persecution of Dmitriev began.
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