The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has called for the ban ruling against the Russian human rights organization Memorial International to be suspended. The decision must be suspended in order to allow the court to consider an urgent application by the organization against the Moscow judgment, the court in Strasbourg said today.
The Russian Supreme Court yesterday issued a ban on the main Russian human rights organization. Today a court in Moscow also ordered the dissolution of the Memorial human rights center.
The public prosecutor had accused both organizations of violating the “Foreign Agents Act”. Critics of Russian President Vladimir Putin see the law as a political instrument to silence opposition and civil society groups. Memorial is the oldest and most important human rights organization in Russia. The umbrella organization has been campaigning for the coming to terms with Stalinist crimes in the Soviet Union for more than 30 years.