Commentary: Closing of Memorial is a harbinger of dark times | Russia and Russians: A View from Europe | Dw

The masks have been torn off. This banal proposal, unfortunately, is again true. Those who still hoped that Vladimir Putin’s Russia would still have a place for Memorial, the country’s most respected and titled human rights organization, on Tuesday, December 28, were disappointed. At the suggestion of the General Prosecutor’s Office of the Russian Federation and the blessing of the Supreme Court, International Memorial will be dissolved. Both instances act at least in the interests of the president. The same fate awaits the Memorial Human Rights Center.

This is more than another closure of a non-profit organization (NPO) inconvenient for the Kremlin. This is a turning point, a milestone. Russia after that will be different.

Roman Goncharenko

Memorial has long interfered with Putin. An organization that recalls KGB crimes and a former KGB officer in the presidency does not mix well. Memorial reminds Russians of the Stalinist terror, of crimes against their people. Putin and his entourage, mostly from the KGB, would like Russians to forget about the dark pages of Soviet and Russian history. With the help of massive propaganda, they almost succeeded.

Free hands for new repression

The Prosecutor General’s Office itself exposed Putin’s intentions, accusing International Memorial of “creating a false image of the USSR as a terrorist state.” The accusations of violating the “foreign agents” law are just a pretext.

A cynic could say that there was no need for Putin to close Memorial, saying that his time had already passed. The organization, one of the founders of which was Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov, experienced its finest hour in the late 1980s. It was her activists who installed the Solovetsky stone on Lubyanskaya Square in Moscow in front of the KGB building – in memory of the victims of the Gulag. It was a symbol of change that Putin has been trying to reverse for years. Obviously, the President would like to complete this process soon. Recently, the importance of “Memorial” in the perception of Russian society has been diminishing, with the board of directors consisted mainly of human rights defenders of retirement age. Why then did you need to close it now?

Memorial’s voice did not appear to have been as weak as the Kremlin would like. New projects annoyed him, for example, OVD-Info, which is now also blocked.

But the current shameful decision of the Russian justice system is, first of all, a harbinger of even darker times. Yes, it could get even darker than it is now. Putin’s Russia is heading for the hot phase of a new Cold War with the West. In such conditions, a human rights organization respected in the West can only interfere. There is reason to fear the intensification of repression and even terror against the opposition and all dissidents. The head of the Kremlin would like to have free hands for this and not listen to the constant reminders of Memorial about new political prisoners.

Memorial will return

So Putin won? Of course not. Whether it’s a historical reflection on Stalin’s terror or a Time.news of human rights violations in Putin’s Russia, Memorial will continue to work underground and from exile. Someday he will return to Russia. How soon depends only on its citizens. Memorial will survive Putin’s rule and someday help to comprehend this time too.

Author: Roman Goncharenko – DW columnist.

This comment expresses the personal opinion of the author. It may not coincide with the opinion of the Russian editorial staff and Deutsche Welle in general.

see also:

• 

  “Foreign agent” is a Kremlin label for NGOs and the media

  Political activity is a loose concept

  Non-profit organizations, by law, are included in the register of “foreign agents” if they engage in political activities in Russia with foreign money. At the same time, the profile of NGOs included in the list of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation makes it clear: the range of their activities is very wide, and the focus of the work of many of them is not associated with politics.

• 

  “Foreign agent” is a Kremlin label for NGOs and the media

  In which regions of the Russian Federation are there the most NPOs recognized by “foreign agents”

  DW has calculated in which regions of Russia NPOs – “foreign agents” are most often found. There are few surprises: Moscow is ahead. The capital is followed by St. Petersburg by a large margin. In third place in terms of the number of non-profit organizations – “foreign agents” – Yekaterinburg.

• 

  “Foreign agent” is a Kremlin label for NGOs and the media

  What happened to the recognized “foreign agents” of NPOs

  Since 2012, 200 organizations have been entered into the register of “foreign agents” of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation. Today, 75 of them are continuing their work. It is very difficult to dispute the status of “foreign agent”, and new rules and restrictions for such organizations appear almost every year. Most of these regulations hinder the work of the commercial sector and force organizations to stop working, human rights activists believe.

• 

  “Foreign agent” is a Kremlin label for NGOs and the media

  Any citizen of the Russian Federation can be recognized as an “foreign agent”

  In December 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law allowing individuals to be counted among the media “foreign agents”. Among the first citizens of the Russian Federation to receive this status are the founder of the For Human Rights movement Lev Ponomarev, St. Petersburg activist Daria Apakhonchich and individual journalists of the Pskov Province, 7×7 and Radio Liberty publications.

  Author: Elena Barysheva, Mikhail Bushuev, Elena Gunkel

.