2023-07-22 10:05:00
Oleg Orlov (left), co-chairman of the Russian human rights organization Memorial and its public defender, Dmitry Muratov, Russian journalist and 2021 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, attend a hearing in Moscow on July 21, 2023. NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA / AFP
The sparkling eye, Oleg Orlov leaves the court with the satisfaction of the accomplished mission. “We succeeded in destroying all their argument! », enthuses this historical figure of Memorial, the NGO dissolved in 2022 by the judicial authorities. This Friday, July 21, at the third hearing of his trial for “public activities aimed at discrediting” the Russian armed forces, this long-time dissident spent three hours, with his lawyers, proving that the work of the experts mounted against him made no sense. “The judge now has all the documents, all the evidence. It’s up to him to decide”he tells the Monde just after the hearing, on the stairs of the small district court where, far from downtown Moscow, his trial has been held since June 8. “Will that be enough to change the verdict? Probably not”recognizes Oleg Orlov. “Because, with us, justice is at your command. And the orders…”
Read also: War in Ukraine live: the Crimean bridge is a “target” that must be “neutralized”, according to Volodymyr Zelensky
At 70, this key figure in Memorial, the main Russian human rights organization, co-winner of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, is being prosecuted for having publicly denounced the Kremlin’s “special military operation” in Ukraine. From the start of the offensive, on February 24, 2022, the co-president of the NGO’s human rights defense center, whose activities are multiple, dared to demonstrate. He took to the streets to wave signs in front of the Duma (lower house of parliament), on the cobblestones of Red Square or elsewhere in central Moscow.
Each time, after a few minutes, he was arrested by the police. The tireless activist, however, protested alone, as authorized a priori by the strict Russian legislation on the right to demonstrate. But his shock formulas shattered the discourse imposed by the Kremlin: “Peace to Ukraine, Freedom to Russia”, “Our refusal to know the truth and our silence make us accomplices in the crime”, “Putin’s madness pushes humanity towards a nuclear war », “USSR 1945, country victorious over fascism; Russia 2022, country of triumphant fascism”.
Read the decryption (in 2021): Article reserved for our subscribers In Russia, the dissolution of the NGO Memorial marks the extent of the democratic decline of the Putin era
Refusal to flee the country
After each arrest, Oleg Orlov was prosecuted in the name of the new laws adopted hastily, from the start of the conflict in Ukraine, to muzzle freedom of expression a little more. Convictions and fines pile up on his criminal record. “But I will continue. Russia’s war in Ukraine is not only against international law but also against our national interests.”he explained to the spring, calm and serene, seated behind a small wooden table in the now closed offices of Memorial.
You have 66.14% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.
#Oleg #Orlov #dissident #silent #flee #Russia