Nine leaders of one of Russia’s oldest human rights groups, Memorial, have been targeted in raids on their homes, 15 months after their organisation was shut down by the courts. Among them was Memorial’s co-chair, Oleg Orlov, who is facing a criminal case for “discrediting” the military. Founded in 1989, Memorial aimed to remember millions of innocent people persecuted by Soviet repression. But it was liquidated ahead of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The raids took place after Russia’s investigative committee opened a criminal investigation against Memorial for alleged “rehabilitation of Nazism”. Memorial has come under political pressure for years and that intensified in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine and Russian proxy forces seized areas of eastern Ukraine. It won the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Ukraine’s Centre for Civil Liberties and Belarusian civil rights activist Ales Bialiatski. Mr Bialiatski was sentenced to 10 years in jail this month in a trial condemned beyond Belarus as a sham.

via bbc: Memorial raids: Russia targets leaders of banned Nobel Prize-winning group

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