Russian police raided members of the Human Rights Memorial, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, in Moscow on Tuesday. One of the chiefs, Oleg Orlov, is on trial for allegedly “discrediting” the Russian army.
A number of people were taken to the police station for questioning.
The authorities accuse Memorial of, among other things, placing the names of Nazi collaborators during World War II on a list of victims of the communist regime. Material with the Memorial logo has been seized.
The memorial was established in the 1980s to document political repression in the Soviet Union. Activists wanted to prevent the victims from being forgotten.
It is the oldest human rights organization in Russia, but it itself has been subjected to repression in the country in recent years. Memorial was banned in 2021 for allegedly violating the “Foreign Clients” rules.
Memorial shares the 2022 Nobel Prize with Ukrainian human rights organization the Center for Civil Liberties and Belarusian human rights activist Alice Bialiatsky.
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