MOSCOW - A Moscow court ordered the closure of one of Russia's most prominent human rights groups on Wednesday , a day after its parent organisation was also shut down in verdicts that, for many Russians, served as a painful coda to a year marked by the erosion of civil rights and freedom of expression.
Since January, the Kremlin has accelerated a campaign to stifle dissent, clamping down on independent media, religious groups and political opponents. Prosecutors also accused the group of failing to comply with a 2012"foreign agent" law, the same reason the Supreme Court gave on Tuesday in closing down Memorial International.
The targeting of the organisation's historical archive and human rights centre at the same time was proof that"the goals are political," according to Ilya Novikov, a lawyer for Memorial. Grigory Vaypan, a lawyer for Memorial, said this week's proceedings were reminiscent of absurd Soviet show trials against dissidents. He mentioned the 1975 case against Sergei Kovalev, who in 1969 helped set up the Action Group for the Defence of Human Rights in the USSR. For his human rights work, Kovalev served seven years in strict prisons and then spent three years in"internal exile" in the Soviet Far East.
"The people of Russia - and the memory of the millions who suffered from Soviet-era repression - deserve better," Blinken said in a statement.
Source: Law Daily Report (lawdailyreport.net)
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