Russia labels Memorial as extremist
The human rights organisation Memorial has been labelled as "extremist" by Russia's Supreme Court, effectively criminalising its activities inside Russia. Memorial was founded in 1989 to document repression in the Soviet era. The organisation was liquidated in 2021 but continued to work abroad and, to some extent, in Russia as well. The Nobel Committee, which awarded Memorial the Peace Prize in 2022, has condemned the decision.
Weaponising memory
This is the next step on the path to criminalising interest in your country's history, warns diplomat and international security expert Eitvydas Bajarūnas in LRT:
“If history is co-opted by security policy, it stops being a space for truth seeking and becomes instrumentalised instead. What actually happened no longer matters – all that counts is what helps those in power. And precisely here lies the deeper problem. A regime that fears its own history will inevitably start to erase it. But by destroying memory, you also destroy any possibility for society to learn from its history.”
Witness to the Kremlin's crimes
In a Facebook post, historian Sergei Medvedev expresses the hope that Memorial will continue:
“Essentially, Memorial created a way of life that both challenged and offered an alternative to a state order based on death; it bore witness to an ongoing crime known as the Russian Federation – an unwanted witness that could quickly be eliminated. And its designation as extremist is the logical outcome of these ominous developments, though it will not stop its activities, wherever its members may be.”