The preliminary hearing in the case of the liquidation of the Memorial human rights center has been extended for the second time by the Moscow City Court. The next meeting is scheduled for December 16.
Journalists and the public were not allowed into the courtroom
During the second preliminary hearing, the court rejected the defense’s petition to summon the prosecution experts who had drawn up a certificate for the plaintiff on the grounds for justifying extremism and terrorism – mathematics teacher Natalya Kryukova and translator Alexander Tarasov. The public and journalists were also not allowed into the process, citing restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic. A specialist from “Memorial” was also not allowed to copy CDs with materials that the prosecutor’s office provided in electronic form.
A man was arrested outside the courthouse holding a poster in support of Memorial.
For the first time, the preliminary hearings on the liquidation of Memorial Human Rights Center were extended by the Moscow City Court on November 23. The reason for this was the fact that the Moscow prosecutor’s office was unable to answer the judge’s question.
Memorial: Prosecutor General’s Office Demand – Political Decision
At the same time, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation is in the process of a lawsuit to liquidate International Memorial, which began on November 25. He also announced a break in the hearings, which it was decided to continue on December 14.
On November 11, the Prosecutor General’s Office of Russia appealed to the Supreme Court with a demand to liquidate Memorial, as well as the organization’s divisions – the human rights center, archive, library and museum. As a basis, the department pointed to the systematic lack of marking “foreign agent” in the materials of the organization.
In the International Memorial itself, they believe that the demand of the Prosecutor General’s Office is a “political decision to destroy society”, which deals with “the history of political repression and the protection of human rights.”
Representatives of the Moscow prosecutor’s office saw in the activities of Memorial Human Rights Center “psychological and linguistic signs” of justifying terrorist organizations.
German historian: one-of-a-kind format ends
The Russian authorities want to close Memorial in order to prevent any attempts to look at history alternatively, according to the German-Russian Museum Berlin-Karlshorst. With his article on the Second World War, President Vladimir Putin “clearly wanted to show” that it is he who “will now tell us about history,” says museum director Jörg Morré in an interview with DW.
The basic principle of Memorial’s work is to work with the so-called oral history, when historians talk with ordinary people, and they, in turn, send or transmit them diaries, documents, and their memories. Due to the liquidation of Memorial, this very format of work, as Morre fears, may be terminated in Russia for future researchers.
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