Russia orders closure of top rights group

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(Refiles correcting typo in headline)

MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia’s Supreme Court dominated on Tuesday that the nation’s best-known human rights group, Memorial, should be liquidated for breaking a legislation requiring teams to register as overseas brokers, the RIA information company reported.

The transfer caps a yr of crackdowns on opposition actions and rights teams, which has additionally seen the top Kremlin critic jailed, his political motion banned and plenty of of his allies flee the nation. Moscow says it’s merely implementing legal guidelines to thwart extremism and defend the nation from overseas affect.

The Interfax information company quoted a lawyer for Memorial – which has mentioned the lawsuit was politically motivated – as saying that it could enchantment, each in Russia and on the European Court of Human Rights.

Established by outstanding dissidents within the closing years of the Soviet Union, Memorial initially targeted on documenting the crimes of the Stalinist period, and has extra lately spoken out towards repression of critics beneath President Vladimir Putin.

The authorities positioned the group on an official record of “overseas brokers” in 2015, a transfer that entailed quite a few restrictions on its actions.

Last month, prosecutors accused the Moscow-based Memorial Human Rights Centre and Memorial International, its guardian construction, of violating the overseas agent legislation, asking the court docket to close them down.

Prosecutors have mentioned particularly that Memorial International breached the rules by not marking all its publications, together with social media posts, with the label as required by legislation.

They additionally accused the Moscow-based centre of condoning terrorism and extremism.

Speaking on the closing listening to on Tuesday, a state prosecutor mentioned Memorial had organised large-scale media campaigns geared toward discrediting the Russian authorities, in keeping with the TASS information company.

The group has denied any critical violations and known as the lawsuits a political choice. It has mentioned its members would proceed their work even whether it is dissolved.

Putin additionally mentioned this month Memorial had defended organisations that Russia thought-about extremist and terrorist, and its record of victims of political repression had included Nazi collaborators.

Much of Memorial’s work has targeted on repressions carried out by Soviet state safety our bodies, together with the KGB the place Putin as soon as served as a spy overseas.

(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova; Writing by Olzhas Auyezov; Editing by David Clarke)



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