{"id":24435,"date":"2021-12-14T12:33:49","date_gmt":"2021-12-14T09:33:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/?p=24435"},"modified":"2021-12-15T15:00:51","modified_gmt":"2021-12-15T12:00:51","slug":"back-to-the-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/articles\/back-to-the-past\/","title":{"rendered":"Back to the Past"},"content":{"rendered":"

The next Supreme Court session<\/a> concerning International Memorial is scheduled for December 14. Much has already been said about the fact that this suit insults the memory of the millions of people crushed by Stalin\u2019s repressions and that this threat to Memorial\u2019s existence and crucial work signals a major turnoff on the path to democracy that leads back into the past, into the murk of totalitarianism. It appears that the current assault on Memorial, its conception and the way it was carried out (from an attack by thugs <\/a>and, under this pretext, the confiscation of computers before the suit on liquidation was filed) is yet another critical fork in the road for Russian history.<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition to charging Memorial with violating the \u201cforeign agents\u201d law, the Prosecutor General also filed charges of violating international treaties, to wit, the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and even the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Either out of legal nihilism or just plain ignorance, the Prosecutor General\u2019s Office is somehow not aware that complying with international treaties is the obligation of the state on behalf of which the treaties and conventions were signed and not of non-governmental organizations, whose activities are in full compliance with the letter and the spirit of these documents. Moreover, the UN committees that monitor implementation of these conventions and covenants have repeatedly recommended that Russia repeal its law on \u201cNGO foreign agents.\u201d<\/p>\n

In July 2012, before the notorious law on \u201cforeign agents\u201d entered into force, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights at the time, Navanethem Pillay, had already warned<\/a> that \u201ca number of amendments to Russian laws will have a major detrimental impact on the protection of human rights in the country.\u201d She also called on the Russian government to \u201cbring [its] laws in line with…national law and international obligations to protect human rights.\u201d At the time, she noted with dismay that \u201claws are being adopted that limit the sphere of civil society\u2019s activities in the place of laws that would help civil society promote and protect human rights.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The law entered into force in December 2012 and was soon used for the first time\u00a0\u2013 and retroactively no less\u00a0\u2013 against organizations that were cooperating with UN human rights agencies. Providing information to the UN Committee Against Torture was deemed the very kind of \u201cpolitical activity\u201d that, along with foreign financing, was what caused the Anti-Discrimination Centre “Memorial”<\/a> to be designated a \u201cforeign agent\u201d after it sent a report titled \u201cRoma. Migrants. Activists: Victims of Police Abuse\u201d to this committee. But one of Russia\u2019s international obligations is to ensure that civil society can share this kind of information.<\/span><\/p>\n

In May 2013, the Committee Against Torture sent a letter<\/a> to the Russian government that pedantically quoted Article 13 of the Convention Against Torture: \u201cEach State Party shall ensure that any individual who alleges he has been subjected to torture in any territory under its jurisdiction has the right to complain to, and to have his case promptly and impartially examined by, its competent authorities.\u201d<\/p>\n

The committee also quoted the recommendations it made to Russia after reviewing its state report and alternative materials provided by human rights defenders: \u201cThe Committee recommends that the State Party…ensure that no individual or group of individuals shall be subjected to persecution for their connection with the Committee Against Torture…within its area of competence.\u201d At the same time, UN special rapporteurs expressed concern that application of the law on \u201cNGO foreign agents\u201d and \u201cthe unprecedented scale of checks resulting in some cases in the initiation of administrative cases\u201d have had the consequences of \u201chindering the activities of, intimidating, and stigmatizing\u201d NGOs.<\/p>\n

Soon other UN committees started to vigorously criticize the law on \u201cforeign agents\u201d: The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination called for its repeal in 2013, while the Committee on the Rights of the Child<\/a> and the Human Rights Committee<\/a> followed suit in 2014. Since then, this recommendation has been repeated by literally every single UN structure that reviews Russia\u2019s compliance with one international treaty or another; in fact, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women recently repeated it<\/a>. Russia has just as stubbornly refused to implement these recommendations.<\/p>\n

The eyes of those who still fail to understand what connection the UN and the \u201cforeign agents\u201d who submit materials there have to life in the country should now open once and for all after the publication of terrible evidence of torture in Russian penal colonies, pretrial detention centers, and police precincts. This is what concerns everyone! \u201cIn Russia, you can be going about your business during the day and then find yourself handcuffed to a chair in a police precinct in the evening and confessing to a crime you didn\u2019t commit the next morning,\u201d said Yuri Dud in a conversation with Igor Kalyapin from the \u201cforeign agent\u201d NGO Committee Against Torture.<\/p>\n

The connection is obvious: The stigmatization of NGOs leads to mythmaking instead of historical truths, which leads to the stifling of free speech, which leads to the inability to report on rights violations, torture, and violence, which leads to the license and impunity of the powers that be, which leads to dictatorship. And, as Nobel laureate Dmitry Muratov <\/a>put it, where there\u2019s dictatorship, there\u2019s war: \u201cIf we reject democracy, we agree to war.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Olga ABRAMENKO
\nFirst published on the blog of Radio Svoboda<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The next Supreme Court session concerning International Memorial is scheduled for December 14. Much has already been said about the fact that this suit insults the memory of the millions of people crushed by Stalin\u2019s repressions and that this threat…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":24427,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[173,287],"strategy_cases":[],"campaign":[],"archive":[],"filter-content":[],"regions":[515],"class_list":["post-24435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-human-rights-en","tag-human-rights-defenders-en","regions-russia"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls_v2":{"full":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/261158528_2056348364521192_8124553040067350387_n.jpg",1200,800,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/261158528_2056348364521192_8124553040067350387_n-125x125.jpg",125,125,true],"medium":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/261158528_2056348364521192_8124553040067350387_n-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/261158528_2056348364521192_8124553040067350387_n-768x512.jpg",640,427,true],"large":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/261158528_2056348364521192_8124553040067350387_n-650x433.jpg",640,426,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/261158528_2056348364521192_8124553040067350387_n.jpg",1200,800,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/261158528_2056348364521192_8124553040067350387_n.jpg",1200,800,false],"pub-thumb":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/261158528_2056348364521192_8124553040067350387_n-220x147.jpg",220,147,true],"post-thumb":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/261158528_2056348364521192_8124553040067350387_n-170x170.jpg",170,170,true],"wcicon":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/261158528_2056348364521192_8124553040067350387_n-48x48.jpg",48,48,true],"wcsquare":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/261158528_2056348364521192_8124553040067350387_n-300x300.jpg",300,300,true],"wcsmall":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/261158528_2056348364521192_8124553040067350387_n-250x167.jpg",250,167,true],"wcstandard":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/261158528_2056348364521192_8124553040067350387_n-550x367.jpg",550,367,true],"wcbig":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/261158528_2056348364521192_8124553040067350387_n-800x533.jpg",800,533,true],"wcfixedheightsmall":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/261158528_2056348364521192_8124553040067350387_n-270x180.jpg",270,180,true],"wcfixedheightmedium":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/261158528_2056348364521192_8124553040067350387_n-450x300.jpg",450,300,true],"wcfixedheight":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/261158528_2056348364521192_8124553040067350387_n-750x500.jpg",750,500,true],"wccarouselsmall":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/261158528_2056348364521192_8124553040067350387_n-210x150.jpg",210,150,true],"wccarousel":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/261158528_2056348364521192_8124553040067350387_n-400x285.jpg",400,285,true],"wcslider":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/261158528_2056348364521192_8124553040067350387_n-1100x500.jpg",1100,500,true]},"post_excerpt_stackable_v2":"

The next Supreme Court session concerning International Memorial is scheduled for December 14. Much has already been said about the fact that this suit insults the memory of the millions of people crushed by Stalin\u2019s repressions and that this threat to Memorial\u2019s existence and crucial work signals a major turnoff on the path to democracy that leads back into the past, into the murk of totalitarianism. It appears that the current assault on Memorial, its conception and the way it was carried out (from an attack by thugs and, under this pretext, the confiscation of computers before the suit on…<\/p>\n","category_list_v2":"Articles<\/a>","author_info_v2":{"name":"admin3","url":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/author\/admin3\/"},"comments_num_v2":"0 comments","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24435"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24442,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24435\/revisions\/24442"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24435"},{"taxonomy":"strategy_cases","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/strategy_cases?post=24435"},{"taxonomy":"campaign","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campaign?post=24435"},{"taxonomy":"archive","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/archive?post=24435"},{"taxonomy":"filter-content","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/filter-content?post=24435"},{"taxonomy":"regions","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regions?post=24435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}