Russia’s Supreme Court dissolves Memorial

Dec 29 2021

International Memorial Society, which documents Soviet-era repressions, was charged with breaching a law on foreign agents, as well as “whitewashing Nazi criminals” and “distorting the image of the USSR as a terrorist state.”

What Happened this Week

By a December 28, 2021 ruling, Russia’s Supreme Court dissolved the “Memorial” International Historical Educational Charitable and Human Rights Society, satisfying petition by the Attorney General’s Office, which charged that the organization repeatedly violated Russia’s laws on “foreign agents” by failing to disclose its “agent” status in content shared on social media.

In his closing statements, prosecutor Alexey Zhafyarov accused Memorial of “distorting the image of the USSR as a terrorist state” and said the group “whitewashes and rehabilitates Nazi criminals.”

“Why are we now, descendants of the victors, forced to watch impunity for traitors to the homeland, Nazi collaborators? Why, instead of being proud of the country that won the war and liberated the entire world, we are being asked to repent for our, as it turned out, hopeless past? Probably because someone is paying for it. That is the real reason behind the aversion with which Memorial vehemently denies its status as a “foreign agent”. That is the real reason why an organization that claims the honorable role of the nation’s conscience does not really want to be reminded in every publication that they are paid for. And if we take these motives into account, the state has requirements to consider that the repeated disregard of the requirement of the law to indicate the status of a ‘foreign agent’ is a gross violation of the law,” the prosecutor opined theatrically.

Representatives of Memorial rejected the claims of the General Prosecutor’s Office, insisting that there are no legal grounds for closing down the organization.

Henry Reznik, a prominent Russian attorney representing Memorial, emphasized at the end of his statement that “Memorial contributes to the health of the nation. And to remove it from our history would be to promote the idea that the state is always right.

Another Memorial advocate, Maria Eismont, said the organization was dedicated to fighting for the openness of information, yet was accused by prosecutors of hiding the truth. She quoted George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984” to describe the prosecution’s case, saying: “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”

After the ruling, Jan Raczynski, chairman of the board of “International Memorial”, asserted that the organization intends to appeal the verdict, and if necessary, will file an appeal with the ECHR. He also noted that there would be no changes in the work of the organization until the appeal is considered.

After the announcement of the verdict, Memorial supporters chanted “Shame!” outside the court. Earlier same day, the police arrested several Memorial supporters gathered near the court building who held up signs with slogans such as “Hands off Memorial.”

On December 29, 2021, a day after Russia’s Supreme Court dissolved the Memorial International Historical Educational Charitable and Human Rights Society, the Moscow City Court ordered the closure of the Memorial’s Human Rights Center, satisfying petition by city prosecutors who argued that the organization’s financial activities are “non-transparent.”

Prosecutors claimed the Memorial Human Rights Center “justified the activities” of several Islamist terrorists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Artpodgotovka left-wing nationalists by naming them as persons persecuted for religion and as political prisoners.

Prosecutors criticized the organization for supporting uncoordinated protests allegedly aimed at “destabilizing the country.” They also accused Memorial of receiving foreign funding from Britain, Norway, the Netherlands, and other countries, as well as of compiling a list of political prisoners maintained by Memorial. All of this, according to the prosecutor’s office, is aimed at forming a negative attitude toward the judicial system of the Russian Federation.

Defense lawyers for Memorial say they plan to appeal the ruling.

Final court deliberations seem to have been deliberately set for the very end of the year, with the expectation of minimal public attention. But the plan failed. On December 29,  a crowd of over a hundred gathered near the courthouse, chanting slogans in support of Memorial.

Russian and International Reactions to the Court Ruling

On December 28, 2021, International Memorial issued an official statement regarding the decision of the Russian Supreme Court.

“The decision of the Supreme Court has once again confirmed that the history of political terror, organized and directed by state power, remains for Russia not an academic topic of interest only to specialists, but an acute problem of our time. Our country needs an honest and honest appraisal of its Soviet past; this is the key to its future. It is ridiculous to assume that the judicial liquidation of the International Memorial will remove this issue from the agenda. All of Russian society needs to remember the tragedies of the past. And not just Russian: the memory of state terror unites all former Soviet republics.”

Memorial assured that it will appeal the Supreme Court’s decision. “And we will find legal ways to continue our work,” the organization added. “Memorial is not an organization, it’s not even a social movement. A memorial is a need of Russian citizens for the truth about its tragic past, about the fate of many millions of people. And no one will be able to ‘liquidate’ this need.”

“Even by the standards of the year 2021, the liquidation of Memorial is an extraordinary event. It is monstrous. The only meaning of the destruction of Memorial is in the brazen demonstration of force… The Supreme Court decision shatters the delicate balance Russian society has been holding for decades,” says a statement from the authoritative Russian newspaper Meduza. “You can try to change attitudes toward history, but you can’t cancel history. Those who fight the past have no future.”

Nyuta Federmesser, head of the Moscow Palliative Care Center and founder of the Vera Hospice Foundation, called the court decision “a disgrace to live with at about the same time.” “Memorial was founded by Academician Sakharov. Memorial is one of the country’s most worthy endeavors. Memorial is memory. Memory cannot be liquidated, it cannot be killed,” she stated.

Boris Vishnevsky, deputy of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly, directly accused Vladimir Putin of closing the Memorial. “How the heirs of the executioners are afraid of those who keep the memory of the crimes. And yes, this decision could not have been made without the consent (or initiative) of Putin. He is the direct perpetrator of it,” Vishnevsky stressed.

Renowned Russian human rights lawyer Ivan Pavlov, who fled Russia in September after authorities charged him with disclosing state secrets when he was representing a journalist charged with treason, said the verdict sends a message that anyone engaged in activism faces possible prosecution. “Yes, it’s a new, dark and difficult era, but it will end, too,” Pavlov encouraged.

Writer Viktor Shenderovich called the liquidation of Memorial “an empty fuss”. “Who can forbid us to remember our dead? The murderers are making a fuss in vain,” he pointed out.

Russian politician Grigory Yavlinsky stated that with this decision the Russian authorities declared themselves the successor of the Stalinist and Soviet regime. “Memorial was liquidated because it tells the truth. It is a transition from an authoritarian regime to a totalitarian regime. This is another step toward war,” he said in a statement.

Dmitri Gudkov, an opposition politician, stressed that the Russian court’s decision in the Memorial case is absolutely worthless for civil society. “Except that they will not destroy the memory, nor will they be able to declare political prisoners as criminals in the eyes of society. And the fact that we are declared a war of extermination is not news. Only we will win in the long run: they will simply die out in the long run.”

Condemnations of the ruling poured in from rights advocates and political figures around the world as well.

U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan called the ruling “a blatant and tragic attempt to suppress freedom of expression and erase history.” Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, called the decision “heart-breaking” in a tweet. Denmark’s foreign minister, Jeppe Kofod, said Memorial’s liquidation “is another step in the deplorable degradation of human rights” in Russia. And Sam Zarifi, secretary general of the Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists, called it “another step toward darkness” for Russia.

Over the past month, dozens of Russian and international organizations, politicians, scientists, and cultural figures have also spoken in support of Memorial. Among them were Nobel Peace Prize laureates, Dmitry Muratov, editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, and Mikhail Gorbachev, the first president of the USSR.

What Memorial Stands for and What it Symbolizes

The Memorial International Historical Educational Charitable and Human Rights Society, known simply as Memorial, is Russia’s oldest and most authoritative and respected human rights organization.

Memorial was established in the late 1980s during the “perestroika” reforms in the USSR. Between 1987 and 1990, while the USSR was still in existence, 23 branches of the society were set up and became active. When the Soviet Union collapsed, branches of Memorial in east and south Ukraine remained affiliated with the Russian network. By 2018, Memorial had more than 60 branches and affiliated organizations throughout Russia, with a quarter of them established in 2014 or later.

The organization was set up by Soviet dissidents — including renowned Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov — during the final years of the Soviet Union. It is focused on researching and documenting the Soviet abuses in the gulag, a vast web of prison camps where political prisoners toiled and died, many of them executed on the basis of concocted evidence.

Memorial has developed an archive of the case files of more than 60,000 Soviet victims of state repressions, its searchable database containing 3 million names of victims, and its database with the names of nearly 42,000 people who worked for the Soviet secret police from 1935 to 1939, when repression peaked.

International Memorial was added to the “foreign agents” registry in October 2016.

The organization’s human rights wing, Memorial Human Rights Center, faced a similar court hearing to address charges of justifying terrorism and extremism, which could also result in its liquidation. The center focuses on contemporary human rights abuses. It released a tally of the 419 political prisoners jailed in Russia several months ago, and it has helped more than 1,500 Russians take their cases to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, to challenge rights abuses by Russian authorities

The Biggest Achievements of Memorial

Preserving Historical Memory

Since 1988, Memorial has been collecting personal effects of victims of political repression and their relatives. Over 33 years, the collection has accumulated tens of thousands of letters, photographs, items of clothing and other artifacts that tell about the Great Terror in USSR.

Memorial is also a scientific institution, which constantly replenishes the database of the politically repressed; it already contains more than three million records on the victims of terror. In archive of the organization it is possible to find lists of people shot in Moscow; lists of those sentenced to the highest measure of punishment by Stalin’s personal order; more than thousand memoirs about GULAG camps from its prisoners and workers; information on personnel structure of NKVD. The “Topography of Terror” project gives the memory of repression a geographical dimension: it is a directory of places in Moscow and the Moscow region associated with political terror. In addition, Memorial researches the repressions against religious groups, Russian Germans, and Polish citizens.

Commemoration of Victims of Repressions

One of the society’s first initiatives was to erect a monument to the victims of political repression in the USSR. It was decided to start with the collection of signatures. They were collected on the Arbat and Pushkinskaya Square, and when the police started detaining the agitators, they moved to clubs, theaters and concerts. After six months, the activists had several hundred thousand votes. By that time, the Memorialists had already decided that their goal was not just to erect a monument, but to create a whole memorial complex with a museum, an archive, and a library.

The memorial was opened on the Memorial Day of the victims of political repressions — October 30, 1990. So the relatives of the victims of repressions got a place where they could bring flowers and honor the memory of their relatives. In 2007 near Solovetsky stone an action “Return of Names” took place during which all people who wished could read out loud the names of victims of political terror. Memorial came up with the idea of this action as a counterweight to the official rallies. Since then it has been held annually.

Assistance to Refugees and Victims of Military Conflicts

Although Memorial was initially conceived as an educational organization, its members soon realized that they could not do no more than study the past and ignore the current political agenda. Thus in 1991 the independent Memorial Human Rights Center emerged. Its work was constantly expanding: in addition to political prisoners, Memorial members dealt with contemporary military conflicts, prepared reports from hot spots, searched for and released hostages from the First and Second Chechen wars.

Svetlana Gannushkina, who cooperated with Memorial on the problems of refugees, participated in the creation of the Human Rights Center. In 1996 she succeeded in separating the work with migrants within the framework of the Center for Human Rights into a separate field, with reception offices in the regions; this is how the network Migration and Law came into being (by 2021, 33 reception offices opened throughout Russia). Over time, there were fewer people fleeing the war conflicts, but the work of the organization did not end: the Human Rights Center focused on labor migrants who found themselves in terrible conditions in Russia.

Defending Human Rights in The North Caucasus

Memorial’s Human Rights Center has been one of the leading rights watchdogs in the North Caucasus, opening an office in Grozny in 2000, when thousands of civilians were falling victim to kidnappings, torture, and so-called “sweeping-up” operations by both Russian federal forces and local militia groups. Memorial was forced to close its Grozny office after the 2009 killing of activist and board member Natalya Estemirova, who was personally investigating cases of kidnapping and murder. Oleg Orlov, the head of Memorial HRC, was sued for defamation after accusing Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov of orchestrating Estemirova’s assassination but was eventually acquitted. At a time when virtually no independent voices remain in Chechnya, Memorial continues to publish near-daily bulletins on human rights abuses in the North Caucasus.

Defense of Political Prisoners and Critics of the Regime

Throughout its existence, Memorial has provided legal and moral support to jailed government opponents in Russia, including Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Aleksei Navalny, Belarus’s Ales Byalyatski, and Andrei Barabanov, Aleksei Gaskarov, and other participants in 2012’s Bolotnaya Square protests. Memorial also maintains a closely watched list of political prisoners, fighting with Kremlin regime.

How the Kremlin Started its Prosecution of Memorial

The early 1990s were perhaps the only relatively peaceful period in Memorial’s history. To this day, some Russian human rights activists consider those years a “golden era,” a time when legislators listened to them and the security forces agreed to cooperate.

The pressure on Memorial intensified rapidly in the 2000s, especially in the Russian North Caucasus. In 2007, Memorial’s Oleg Orlov and journalists from REN TV were kidnapped from a hotel in Ingushetia and beaten up. The crime was attributed to unspecified “destructive forces” — no charges were laid. In 2009, Memorial human rights advocate Natalya Estemirova was kidnapped and murdered in Chechnya. The perpetrators were never found.

The pressure hasn’t let up since. Just a few years ago, the head of Memorial’s Chechnya office, Oyub Titiyev, was arrested for alleged drug possession. A week after his arrest, Memorial’s office in neighboring Ingushetia was burned down. The rights group decided to shut down its Chechnya office for security reasons.

After the start of Vladimir Putin’s third presidential term, the battle against Memorial and other human rights organizations became part of state policy in Russia. The law on “foreign agents” was adopted in 2012; the Memorial Human Rights Center was blacklisted as a “foreign agent” a year later. Its parent organization, Memorial International, was slapped with “foreign agent” status in 2016.

The Karelian branch of Memorial was deprived of its head in 2020: historian Yury Dmitriev was sentenced to 13 years in a strict regime penal colony on charges of child sex abuse. On December 27, 2021 Dmitriev’s sentence was increased by two more years: from 13 to 15 years. Memorial says that the case was a fabricated and politically motivated one. Dmitriev was responsible for drawing up lists of the repressed in Karelia and conducting search operations at the sites of the shootings. In the late 1990s, a search group led by Dmitriev discovered execution pits in the Sandarmoh woods where the victims of 1937-1938 repressions were buried.

Finally, on November 11, 2021, the Russian Prosecutor-General’s Office has asked for the liquidation of International Memorial. The organization was accused of violating the legislation on “foreign agents,” specifically the absence of appropriate labeling in its materials.

During a recent meeting with the Presidential Human Rights Council, Vladimir Putin responded to a question about the federal case against International Memorial by pointing out that the group accidentally listed three Nazi combatants among the victims of the Stalinist Terror. Memorial’s executives say the group’s shortage of resources makes such errors possible, and researchers do their best to correct any inaccuracies as quickly as possible. Human rights activists warn that the Russian authorities want to establish a monopoly on all sensitive topics. “Unfortunately, the government is aiming to subjugate dangerous spheres,” says Memorial’s Sergey Bondarenko. “There can be remembrance. But it shouldn’t include any independent, [non-government] organizations. Everything should be understood by the authorities.

Biden Administration Must Accelerate Efforts to Free Kara-Murza

Feb 22 2024

President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Biden:

We the undersigned write to express a two-fold request of your administration. As we all mourn the loss of Russian democratic opposition leader Alexey Navalny, who died in Russian custody while unjustly incarcerated on February 16, 2024, we request that you accelerate your efforts to release imprisoned Russian prodemocracy advocate Vladimir Kara-Murza. Kara-Murza is an extremely vulnerable prisoner, and we fear that he may be the Kremlin’s next victim if the United States does not act swiftly.

Kara-Murza is a US lawful permanent resident (which the Levinson Act defines as a US national), a historian and Washington Post opinion writer, a fierce critic of Vladimir Putin, a deeply principled man, and a passionate advocate for political and civil rights in his native Russia. He is also currently being held as a political prisoner by Russian authorities. Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Kara-Murza chose to return to his country of origin in April 2022, saying that he must go back to stand with Russian antiwar protesters and against Putin. He was arrested just days after his return to Moscow, and has remained in prison since. In April 2023, Kara-Murza was sentenced to 25 years in prison, the maximum possible sentence, on bogus charges for his criticism of Putin’s corrupt and repressive government and the Kremlin’s ongoing, devastating war against Ukraine.

Kara-Murza’s health has rapidly deteriorated while in custody. His wife, Evgenia Kara-Murza, has reported that he has lost more than 50 pounds in the last year and is facing paralysis in both of his feet due to untreated polyneuropathy—a condition brought on as a result of the poisonings carried out by Putin’s government in the 2015 and 2017 attempts on his life. He was kept in solitary confinement for several months and is being held in a maximum-security facility.

Many of our organizations have been assured that his release is a “high priority” by several members of your administration; as a concrete demonstration of this claim, we request that Kara-Murza:

1.     Be immediately designated “wrongfully detained” under the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act.

2.     Be included in any ongoing negotiations with Russia.

First, as a lawful permanent resident (LPR) with significant ties to the United States, Kara-Murza meets the legal criteria to be designated “wrongfully detained” under the Levinson Act, and the US State Department should do so expeditiously. On August 14, 2023, the State Department confirmed that LPRs have been designated “wrongfully detained” under the act; Kara-Murza should be also. One notable example of a US LPR being designated “wrongfully detained” under the Levinson Act is Paul Rusesabagina of Rwanda, the famed “Hotel Rwanda” activist. Rusesabagina was designated “wrongfully detained” by the US government after his August 2020 flight to Burundi was redirected to Rwanda, where he was subsequently arrested, tortured, and sentenced to 25 years in prison in a sham trial.

Kara-Murza meets 10 of the 11 criteria in the law, which makes him readily eligible for the “wrongfully detained” designation. The law clearly states that designations can be made on criteria “which may include” the 11 enumerated provisions, but nowhere does it state that all 11 criteria must be met.

The Kremlin clearly considers Kara-Murza to be a high-value political prisoner, shown by virtue of the fact that he received the maximum possible sentence for the fabricated crimes pinned on him simply for his opposition to Putin and the Kremlin’s illegal war in Ukraine. For this, we want to stress that “wrongfully detained” designations may be private (as opposed to public). If the State Department considers a public designation to be too incendiary, a private designation is a suitable option.

Second, it is critical that Kara-Murza be included in any discussions with Russian officials regarding prisoner releases. As a US national, as defined under the Levinson Act, and a person who is seen by Putin as a significant prisoner, it is crucial for both Kara-Murza’s well-being and American foreign policy that he be released. We feel strongly that the United States has a clear obligation to prioritize the release of all unjustly detained American nationals, which includes citizens like Paul Whelan, Evan Gershkovich, Alsu Kurmasheva, and Marc Fogel, as well as Kara-Murza.

Kara-Murza is a hero who has courageously dedicated his life to advancing freedom and democracy. For his vision of a democratic and peaceful Russia, which is deeply in line with US strategic interests, he has suffered greatly at the hands of Putin and his cronies. Kara-Murza continues to sacrifice to defend the principles we hold so dear in the United States, and he is extremely vulnerable in prison.

The tragic death of Navalny underscores the risks political prisoners, especially high-profile ones, face in prison. We urge the Biden administration to act swiftly to bring Kara-Murza home and to increase efforts to seek the release of all Russian political prisoners.

Regards,

Individual Signatories:

  • Michael J. Abramowitz, President, Freedom House
  • Elliott Abrams, Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies, Council on Foreign Relations
  • Paige Alexander, Chief Executive Officer, the Carter Center; Vice Chair, Free Russia Foundation
  • Natalia Arno, President, Free Russia Foundation
  • John R. Beyrle, former US Ambassador to Russia and Bulgaria
  • George C. Biddle, Trustee and Chairman, Civil Courage Prize
  • Stephen E. Biegun, former US Deputy Secretary of State
  • Michael Breen, President and Chief Executive Officer, Human Rights First
  • Ellen Bork, Fellow, the George W. Bush Institute
  • William Browder, President, Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign
  • Agnès Callamard, PhD, Secretary General, Amnesty International
  • Christian Caryl, Independent Journalist
  • Michael Chertoff, former US Secretary of Homeland Security; member, Freedom House Board of Trustees
  • Honourable Professor Irwin Cotler, PC, OC, OQ, AdE.; former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada
  • Uriel Epshtein, Chief Executive Officer, Renew Democracy Initiative
  • Evelyn N. Farkas, PhD, Executive Director, the McCain Institute at Arizona State University
  • Jennifer Finney Boylan, Author
  • Jane Harman, Cochair, Freedom House Board of Trustees; former Congresswoman from California
  • Tirana Hassan, Executive Director, Human Rights Watch
  • John E. Herbst, former US Ambassador to Ukraine and Uzbekistan; Senior Director, the Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council
  • Patrick Gaspard, President, Center for American Progress; former US Ambassador to South Africa
  • Carl Gershman, Former and Founding President, National Endowment for Democracy
  • Jon Huntsman Jr., former US Ambassador to Russia, China, and Singapore; former Governor of Utah
  • Garry Kasparov, former World Chess Champion; Russian opposition leader; Chairman, Renew Democracy Initiative
  • Jonathan Katz, former Deputy Assistant Administrator, Europe and Eurasia Bureau, US Agency for International Development
  • Ian Kelly, former US Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and to Georgia; Ambassador in Residence, Northwestern University
  • Mikhail Khodorkovsky, founder, the Russian Anti-War Committee
  • Peter Kovler, member, National Democratic Institute Board of Trustees
  • David J. Kramer, Executive Director, the George W. Bush Institute
  • Joanne Leedom-Ackerman, Author
  • Leopoldo López, Freedom Activist; Cofounder and General Secretary, World Liberty Congress
  • Tom Malinowski, former Congressman from New Jersey; former US Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor
  • Félix Maradiaga, Nicaraguan opposition leader; President, Foundation for the Freedom of Nicaragua; member, Freedom House Board of Trustees
  • Michael A. McFaul, former US Ambassador to Russia
  • Sarah E. Mendelson, former US Representative to the UN Economic and Social Council
  • Alfred H. Moses, former US Ambassador to Romania
  • Suzanne Nossel, Chief Executive Officer, PEN America
  • Steven Pifer, former US Ambassador to Ukraine
  • Pedro Pizano, Assistant Director for Democracy Programs, the McCain Institute at Arizona State University
  • Alina Polyakova, PhD, President and Chief Executive Officer, Center for European Policy Analysis
  • Maria A. Ressa, Chief Executive Officer, Rappler; 2021 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
  • Randy Scheunemann, Strategic Counselor, Halifax International Security Forum
  • Natan Sharansky, former political prisoner in the Soviet Union; recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor and the Presidential Medal of Freedom
  • John Shattuck, Professor of Practice in Diplomacy, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University; former US Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor; former US Ambassador to the Czech Republic
  • Brandon Silver, International Human Rights Lawyer; Director of Policy and Projects, Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights
  • Gary Shteyngart, Author
  • Timothy Snyder, Richard C. Levin Professor of History, Yale University
  • John J. Sullivan, former US Ambassador to Russia; former US Deputy Secretary of State
  • William B. Taylor Jr., former US Ambassador to Ukraine
  • Daniel Treisman, Professor, University of California, Los Angeles
  • Daniel Twining, PhD, President, International Republican Institute
  • Peter Van Praagh, President, Halifax International Security Forum
  • Alexander Vershbow, former US Ambassador to Russia; former Deputy Secretary General, North Atlantic Treaty Organization
  • Melanne Verveer, former US Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues; Executive Director, Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security
  • Wendell L. Willkie II, former Associate Counsel to the President of the United States; former General Counsel, US Department of Commerce; Cochair, Freedom House Board of Trustees
  • Damon Wilson, President and Chief Executive Officer, National Endowment for Democracy
  • Marie Yovanovitch, former US Ambassador to Ukraine

Organizational Endorsements:

  • Civil Courage Prize
  • Free Russia Foundation
  • Freedom House
  • The George W. Bush Institute
  • Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign
  • Human Rights First
  • Human Rights Foundation
  • Human Rights Watch
  • The McCain Institute
  • National Democratic Institute
  • National Endowment for Democracy
  • PEN America
  • Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights
  • Renew Democracy Initiative
  • Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights
  • World Liberty Congress

cc:

The Honorable Antony J. Blinken
Secretary of State

US Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520

Mr. Jake Sullivan
National Security Advisor

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Alexei Navalny’s murder. Statement by Free Russia Foundation team

Feb 16 2024

Alexei Navalny’s death is a premeditated political assassination.

The personal responsibility for Navalny’s death lies with the man who usurped power and declared himself president of Russia. Navalny was murdered by Putin. This murder went on for years, every day, under the cover of lies and impunity. All these years, on Putin’s orders, he was persecuted, poisoned, imprisoned, and finally sent to a prison on the edge of Russia where he was held in torture-like conditions.

We offer our sincerest condolences to the family of Alexei Navalny — his wife Yulia, his children Daria and Zakhar, his brother Oleg, his mother Lyudmila Ivanovna, his father Anatoly Ivanovich, and all of Alexei’s family and friends. Your loss is immeasurable, and we stand united with each of you during this challenging time.

This isn’t merely a shock to us; it’s a deep and profound sorrow.

We call on world leaders, national governments, and international organizations to respond to this act of political terror.

The murderous regime in Russia represents a security threat to all citizens of the free world. It is in the interest of global security and the welfare of humanity to put an end to it.

Navalny’s murder was part of a tragic scenario against the backdrop of Russia’s dubious presidential “election”. Alexei Navalny, a leading critic of the Kremlin for years and a symbol of hope for change, had every chance of being elected as Russia’s legitimate president. This further emphasizes that Putin is an illegitimate usurper. Refusing to recognize him as the legitimate president now becomes not just a mandatory step, but a moral and political duty.

We demand justice for the memory of Alexei Navalny, for his family, and for all Russians who seek freedom. We will not stop until we achieve this goal. As long as tyranny and lawlessness persist, our work to defend human rights and promote democracy will continue.

Justice will prevail in Russia, and Navalny’s perpetrators will be punished.

Free Russia Foundation team.

The Plight of the Kremlin’s Political Prisoners

Oct 23 2023

Please join us for an in-person discussion on The Plight of the Kremlin’s Political Prisoners on Monday, October 30 from 12:00 noon to 1:30 pm at the Victims of Communism Museum located at 900 15th St NW in Washington, DC. The event will give a voice for those who can no longer speak for themselves and will include an interactive exhibit featuring photos and quotes of prominent political prisoners held by the Kremlin.

Space is limited, RSVP is required. The conversation is public and on-the record, members of the press are welcome.

The event will mark the International Day of Political Prisoners and feature substantive updates by:

  • Sergei Davidis, Head of Political Prisoners Program, Memorial Human Rights Center;
  • Evgenia Kara-Murza, Advocacy Director at Free Russia Foundation;
  • Mariana Katzarova, the UN Special Rapporteur on Russia;
  • MEP Andrius Kubilius, the Standing Rapporteur on Russia at the EU Parliament;
  • Karinna Moskalenko, Russia’s leading human rights lawyer, Founder of the Center de la Protection Internationale; and
  • Vadim Prokhorov, lawyer for political prisoner Vladimir Kara-Murza.

Expert presentations will be followed by an extensive Q&A session with the audience. The discussion will be moderated by Natalia Arno, President of Free Russia Foundation. To reserve your spot, please register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/743473939567?aff=oddtdtcreator

Speakers’ Bios:

Andrius Kubilius is a Lithuanian politician and a Member of the European Parliament (MEP). He served as Prime Minister of Lithuania from 1999 to 2000 and again from 2008 to 2012. He was the leader of the conservative political party Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats. Kubilius became a member of the pro-independence Sąjūdis movement, which favored separation from the Soviet Union. He later became the Executive Secretary of the Sąjūdis Council. Soon after the re-establishment of Lithuania’s independence, Kubilius was elected to the Seimas (parliament). Since then, Kubilius has been an active figure in Lithuanian politics. Kubillius is the current Standing Rapporteur on Russia at the EU Parliament.

Mariana Katzarova (Bulgaria) was appointed as Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Russian Federation by the UN Human Rights Council on April 4, 2023. Ms. Katzarova led the UN Human Rights Council’s mandated examination of the human rights situation in Belarus in 2021-22. During the first 2 years of the armed conflict in Ukraine (2014-16), she led the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission team in Donbas as head of the regional office in Eastern Ukraine. For a decade she headed the Amnesty International investigations of human rights in Russia and the two conflicts in Chechnya. Ms. Katzarova founded RAW in WAR (Reach All Women in War) in 2006 after working as a journalist and human rights investigator in the war zones of Bosnia, Kosovo and Chechnya. At RAW, she established the annual Anna Politkovskaya Award for women human rights defenders working in war and conflict zones. She was Advisor to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on combating human trafficking, and a senior advisor at the OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe).

Evgenia Kara-Murza is a Russian human rights activist and wife of political prisoner Vladimir Kara-Murza, the twice-poisoned Russian opposition leader, imprisoned since April 11, 2022 for speaking out about the war on Ukraine. She worked as a translator and interpreter in Russian, English, and French for pro-democracy NGOs including the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, the Institute of Modern Russia, and Pen America. She subsequently joined her husband Vladimir at Free Russia Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan international organization supporting civil society and democratic development in Russia. Advocating for human rights accountability and promoting civil society and democratic change in Russia, she serves as FRF Advocacy Director.

Sergei Davidis is Head of Political Prisoners Support Program and Member of the Council at the Memorial Human Rights Center in Moscow, Russia. He was educated in Sociology at Moscow State University and on Law at Moscow State Law Academy. For many years, he was a participant and one of the organizers of the democratic opposition movement. His research interests are closely related to activities to support political prisoners in Russia, and he studies the sociological and legal aspects of politically motivated deprivation of liberty, in particular, in the context of world practice and international norms.

Karinna Moskalenko is Russia’s leading human rights lawyer. She was the first Russian lawyer to take a case to the European Court for Human Rights and won the first ever case against the Russian government at the court in Strasbourg. She founded the Center for International Protection in Russia in 1994. She is a member of the Moscow Helsinki Group. While some of her clients are household names: Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Garry Kasparov, Igor Sutyagin, Alexander Litvinenko to name a few, she has also represented countless victims of human rights abuses. She won more than 100 cases including AH & others v. Russian Federation where she was representing the rights of American families who were in the process of adopting children when Russia banned US adoptions with their so-called Dima Yakovlev law. Karinna moved her family to Strasbourg in 2006 where she founded the “Center de la Protection Internationale,” a human rights litigation NGO focused on litigating cases in international courts, which has filed and won more than 500 cases on behalf of its clients. For nine year, Karinna was a Commissioner for the International Commission for Jurists for which she is an Honorary member. Currently she is a head of the experts’ group, appointed by the UN Human Rights Council for the UN High Commissioner working on the UN mandated examination of human rights situation in Belarus. Vadim Prokhorov is a Russian human-rights lawyer who has defended critics of the Kremlin, including prominent opposition politicians and anti-corruption campaigners. He has defended many human rights activists, such as Boris Nemtsov, Ilya Yashin, Vladimir Kara-Murza and Vladimir Bukovsky. Prokhorov’s work as a lawyer has made him an important figure in the human rights field, as the Russian government has increasingly suppressed public dissent and oppositional work. This increase in governmental repression gravely impacted Prokhorov’s work, who has been representing human rights defender and opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza for the last ten years. Currently, Vadim Prokhorov continues his advocacy to protect the Russian opposition, political prisoners in Russian courts – online from abroad.

Free Russia Foundation Denounces the Verdict Delivered to the Participants of the “Ingush Case” as a Clear Mockery of Justice

Jul 28 2023

Free Russia Foundation, along with our staff, expresses our deep concern and indignation at the final verdict delivered today, July 28, 2023, by the Stavropol Court in the Russian city of Pyatigorsk, regarding the participants of the “Ingush Case.”

The verdict remains unchanged since December 2021 when Akhmed Barakhoev, Musa Malsagov, and Malsag Uzhakhov were each sentenced to 9 years in a general regime colony. Ismail Nalgiev, Bagaudin Khautiev, and Barakh Chemurziev received 8-year sentences each, while Zarifa Sautieva was sentenced to 7.5 years. They were all found guilty of using violence against representatives of the authorities, establishing an extremist group, and participating in its activities. 

The appeal trial lasted for over half a year, with the defense lawyers presenting their arguments for 12 days during the debates. In contrast, the prosecutor’s speech was remarkably brief, lasting only five minutes, where he simply read out the arguments from the objections, which were concise and fit on just a few sheets of paper.

This stands as one of the most significant political cases in Russian history. It all started on March 27, 2019, when a rally against the alteration of Ingushetia’s administrative border with the Chechen Republic in Magas led to a crackdown on the Ingush opposition. Consequently, administrative cases were initiated against hundreds of participants in the people’s protest, and dozens of them faced criminal charges.

The Memorial Center, an organization that monitors politically motivated cases, has officially designated all those convicted in the “Ingush Case” as political prisoners. According to Sergei Davidis, who serves as the co-chairman of the Memorial Center, this case stands out as one of the most unprecedented political cases in Russian history. He states, “Civil society leaders are being accused merely for being civil society leaders. There is no fabrication involved; instead, they are trying to twist perfectly legitimate actions into criminal acts.”

Free Russia Foundation shares the same perspective as Memorial and urges the international community to take notice of this blatant violation of human rights.

The verdict handed down to the participants in the “Ingush Case” is a true mockery of justice, primarily because the prosecution was unable to demonstrate that the oppositionists had actually formed an extremist group. Additionally, there was a failure to provide evidence of any criminal conspiracy to incite violence against law enforcement personnel. Throughout the indictment, words such as “probably,” “presumably,” and “maybe” were frequently employed, undermining the strength of the case. Notably, the word “approximately” was used more than ten thousand times

A few years back, Ingushetia demonstrated to the entire nation that it was possible to conduct multi-day protests with thousands of people in a peaceful manner, without jeopardizing law and order. However, the Kremlin viewed this as a display of free thinking that clashed with the current regime’s control, leading them to take punitive action against the organizers of the peaceful protest. This move was intended to send a warning to residents of other regions in Russia, showcasing the potential consequences they might face for seeking justice.

The criminal case brought against the organizers is undeniably politically motivated, with the aim of maintaining power and suppressing public activism from critics of Putin’s regime. The verdict delivered today represents yet another step in the direction of quashing constitutionally guaranteed rights and freedoms of not only the people of Ingushetia but also citizens across Russia as a whole. It highlights the authorities’ attempt to curb any form of public activism and dissent.

Free Russia Foundation calls for the immediate release of all individuals unjustly convicted in the “Ingush Case.” Furthermore, we demand that the officials responsible for their unwarranted persecution be held accountable and brought to justice.

We urge the international community, human rights organizations, and all those who stand for freedom and justice to demonstrate their solidarity with the participants in the “Ingush Case.” It is crucial to support their fight for justice and the protection of human rights. Freedom and justice are fundamental and non-negotiable values, and any violation of these principles demands a resolute response and unified support.

We cannot afford to remain indifferent to the ongoing situation, and by coming together in solidarity, we can work towards fostering a truly democratic society.

Free Russia Foundation Statement on the Situation in Russia

Jun 24 2023

Free Russia Foundation is closely following the news surrounding the activities of the Wagner Group inside Russia with grave concern.

The events themselves, the diverging agendas advanced by various Russian power groups, and how they may unfold in the coming days are highly dynamic and uncertain. What is clear is that the political situation in Russia is extremely unstable and volatile, with the potential to escalate quickly and posing risks far beyond Russian borders.

This development, however, is a logical evolution of the lawlessness, violence, and corruption purposefully harnessed by Putin in order to remain in power and brutally wielded against Russian civil society in the form of repressions, and against the people of Ukraine in the form of military aggression.

Free Russia Foundation calls on the democratic world to provide Ukraine with all it requires for a decisive victory on the battlefield against Russian forces and to strengthen its commitment to pro-democracy Russians, both in-country and those forced into exile—as the two prerequisites for peace and stability in the region.