A Russian court ordered that Memorial’s office in Moscow will “become state property” on Friday, DW News reported. The order came hours after the rights group won the Nobel peace prize for the year 2022. The group had been disbanded last year by Russian authorities.
The order implies that the headquarters of the Nobel peace prize-winning human rights organization will be completely seized. On Friday, Memorial won this year’s prestigious peace award along with Belarusian human rights activist Ales Bialiatski and the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties.
“We are grateful to the Nobel Committee for honoring us with this award,” the human rights group said following the announcement of the Nobel Peace prize.
But in Russia, a representative of the general prosecutor’s office accused Memorial of “rehabilitating Nazi criminals and discrediting authorities and creating a false image of the USSR,” DW News said in its report.
Asserting that the seizure of their office will not impact their work, the human rights group said, “Memorial — it’s a network, it’s people, it’s a movement. Our work is under heavy pressure like many other organizations. But, it is not possible to forbid memory and freedom.”
Memorial, which was established in 1987, is one of Russia’s most highly regarded human rights organizations. The group has documented some of the crimes committed under the Soviet Union’s Stalinist regime, AFP reported.
