United States and European Union condemn the ban in Russia "Memorial" | News from Germany on world events

The persecution of Russian Memorial organizations is “an insult to their noble mission and human rights activities around the world,” US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said on Tuesday, December 28. “The United States condemns today’s decision by the Russian Supreme Court to forcefully close International Memorial, one of Russia’s oldest and most respected scientific and human rights organizations,” Blinken said in a statement on the US Department of State’s website.

According to the Secretary of State, Washington is also watching with concern the attempts to liquidate a related organization – the Memorial Human Rights Center. Blinken expressed solidarity with those who were repressed in the struggle for freedom of speech and expressed solidarity with political prisoners in Russia.

“We call on the Russian authorities to stop suppressing independent voices and persecuting human rights defenders,” Reuters also quoted US State Department spokesman Ned Price as saying.

Brussels shocked by Memorial ban

In turn, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell was shocked by the decision to liquidate Memorial. “The EU strongly condemns the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation to liquidate International Memorial, which plays an important role in working out the memory of political repression and human rights violations,” the head of European diplomacy wrote on his Twitter microblog.

For social development and progress, “one cannot do without a critical look at its own past,” Borrell quotes dpa. The strangulation of freedoms weakens those who are committed to such work, the diplomat emphasized.

Earlier in the day, the German government condemned the decision to liquidate the International Memorial. Amnesty International, a major international human rights organization, called for the cancellation of the decision to ban Memorial, calling it an insult to the memory of the millions of victims of the Gulag.

On the morning of December 28, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation made a decision to ban the Memorial International Historical and Educational Society.

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