Russia's Supreme Court Labels Memorial as Extremist

Russia's Supreme Court ruled on Thursday to designate Memorial International Public Movement, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights group, as an extremist organization. The ruling allows authorities to prosecute anyone who works for or shares materials published by Memorial.

The court's decision followed closed-door hearings and was reported by UPI. Memorial, founded in 1987, has been dedicated to documenting human rights violations in the Soviet Union. The group was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022 alongside Ukraine's Center for Civil Liberties and Ales Bialiatski.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee, as reported by Reuters and Al Jazeera, condemned Russia's attempt to criminalize Memorial. The committee expressed alarm at the Russian authorities' latest attempts to destroy Memorial, stating that designating such an organization as extremist is an affront to fundamental values of human dignity and freedom of expression.

The ruling against the human rights group followed a closed hearing on a petition from the Justice Ministry to designate what it called “the Memorial international civic movement” as extremist and ban its activities in Russia. According to Los Angeles Times, Memorial said in a statement issued earlier that there is no such entity but that the ruling still 'would allow the authorities to crack down on any Memorial projects, their participants and supporters.'

The group had been declared a “foreign agent,” a designation that brought additional government scrutiny and carried strong pejorative connotations. Over the years, it was ordered to pay massive fines for alleged violations of the ”foreign agent” law. Russian courts ordered its two main entities — the human rights center and the International Memorial — to shut down in December 2021.

Memorial responded to the ruling by ceasing all activities directly within Russia but announced it would continue its work outside the country. The group's chairman, Oleg Orlov, was jailed for 30 months in February 2024 after accusing Russia of 'mass murder' in Ukraine and describing his country as a 'totalitarian' state.

According to Los Angeles Times, the Russian state news agency Tass cited the Supreme Court’s press service as saying Memorial’s activities “are clearly anti-Russian in nature, aimed at destroying the fundamental foundations of Russian statehood, violating territorial integrity, and eroding historical, cultural, spiritual, and moral values.”