The court shuts down a Russian human rights group

Russian nuclear physicist and critic of the system Andrei Sakharov He co-founded the Memorial Organization during the period of repression in the Soviet Union. Memorial pioneered, among other things, the mapping and collection and preservation of testimonies about abuses committed by the Soviet state, a work that continued in Russia.

Memorial will be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022.

But the organization was labeled a “foreign agent,” and a Russian court banned it altogether in late 2021.

However, work on revising developments in Russia continued in the Sakharov Center organization. The organization was founded in 1996 under the name of Zakharov, and holds conferences and exhibitions.

But on Friday, it was also banned by a court, based on an order from the Russian Ministry of Justice. According to the decision of the Moscow City Court, the Sakharov Center held “illegal conferences”.

The organization was forced out of its headquarters in April, but has tried to maintain some activity.

In January the Helsinki Group, the respected Moscow organization that was the country’s oldest operating human rights group, was banned and closed.

Thus nearly all human rights groups in Russia were shut down and the country’s most active critics of the regime were imprisoned.