“The terror of Stalin scale may begin”
Human rights champion Lyudmila Alexeyeva on consequences of closing the Anti-Discrimination Center “Memorial” in Russia
Russian Anti-Discrimination Center “Memorial,” which fought against xenophobia and racism, faces closure. Recently the St. Petersburg court rejected the appeal of this organization which defends its right not to be called a “foreign agent.” “Constitutional court has stated that such requirements help to make the work of NGOs ‘transparent,’ which in no way infringes on their operations,” reads the website of ADC “Memorial.” “All the arguments of the NGOs, which suffered from the adopted law on ‘foreign agents,’ were turned down, although NGOs claimed that such a stigma would make their work impossible, since nobody would want to work with ‘foreign agents’ and that any publications of NGOs with such a title will not be considered trustworthy.”
Registration as a foreign agent is a requirement of the law on NGOs adopted in July 2013 (popularly called the law “on foreign agents”). The document obliges NGOs to register if they get funding from abroad.
The RF Office of Amnesty International responded immediately to the court ruling. “The Russian authorities are deliberately depriving Russian society of an alternative voice, of checks and balances to the government’s actions. They attack anybody who dares to criticize them,” the website of the organization quotes Sergei Nikitin, Director of Amnesty International’s Moscow office, as saying.
A human rights champion, chairperson of Moscow-based Helsinki group Lyudmila Alexeyeva assesses the decision of the St. Petersburg Court as a “pressure on Russian civil society.” However, she adds that the law on NGOs helps in this. “It was adopted with an only purpose – liquidation of civil society in Russia. This is an impossible task: if a civil society struck root in the country, it will develop. Of course, a Stalin-scale terror may begin, but I hope this won’t happen in the 21st century because it is impossible,” Alexeyeva said in a commentary to The Day.
In the organization, which is now in disgrace of St. Petersburg authorities, confirmed to The Day that they are not going to become “agents.” According to chairperson of ADC “Memorial” Stefania KULAEVA, she and her colleagues “prefer to close the organization rather than become foreign agents.”
According to Kulaeva, a “new time” began in Russia in February – the country “doomed itself to international isolation, open violation of all regulations.”
“We’re living in the time of gradually strengthened authoritarianism and increased violations of human rights. This more and more resembles the Soviet time before the perestroika. It is not accidental that our representative in court said ‘What is going on there resembles more a trial of the Article 190 from the Criminal Code of the USSR’ [anti-Sovietism. – Ed.]. We were accused of criticizing the actions of the policy and bodies of power. For this stand our organization has been practically legally destroyed,” she underlined.
Kulaeva notes as well that Russian government is afraid that Ukrainian Maidan will be repeated, therefore “unthinkable, irrational, and aggressive actions regarding Ukraine have been started immediately.”
“Of course, Russians still hope that you can choose freedom and decent life, achieve respectful attitude to you. But, unfortunately, a considerable part of Russians is under effect of television propaganda and perceives this information without thinking critically,” she adds.
But the employees of the ADC “Memorial” are not going to stop their work. “I think, like Ukrainian struggle for freedom, resoluteness is a greater power than physical strength,” Kulaeva resumes.
The Day’s FACT FILE
ADC “Memorial” was founded in 2007; however, the organization had been working on the projects on protection of human rights of Gypsies before, in a different NGO, since 2000. The main activity of the center is fighting against discrimination, xenophobia, racism, etc. “Memorial” is as well working on projects on protection of the rights of Gypsies, migrants, LGBT, women, and children. At present stage the organization continues to develop them, already in a new format.
