The Russian government has accused a leading human rights group of violating the country’s constitution and could soon seek to dissolve it, according to Human Rights Watch.
Moscow’s Justice Ministry said in its audit of the Memorial Human Rights Center that the group was aiming to destabilize Russia by advocating for regime change. Memorial, one of Russia’s oldest human rights organizations, has extensively documented abuses under the former Soviet Union and President Vladimir Putin’s government.
Human Rights Watch reports:
In the inspection’s "concluding act," the ministry wrote that the group worked to "undermine the foundations of Russia’s constitutional rule, by calling for the dismantling of the powers that be and changing the country’s political regime." According to the ministry, Memorial was doing all this by fostering negative public attitudes toward the government, specifically through its criticism of the government’s actions and policies. […]
The Ministry of Justice can now use its own "findings" to go to court and demand that Memorial be shut down. It could also ask the prosecutors to open a criminal case against Memorial for allegedly attempting to dismantle the constitutional rule.
What Russia’s international partners do in response to this development, and in particular whether they close their eyes to the Russian government squeezing the very life out of Russian civil society or stand in solidarity with its citizens, will help to determine what happens next.
Russia has labeled several U.S.-funded civil society groups as "foreign agents," a designation common in the Soviet era.