In relation to the employees of the society “Memorial” (recognized as a foreign agent and liquidated), a case was initiated under article 354.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Rehabilitation of Nazism”). This is reported TASS with reference to a law enforcement source. Memorial did not confirm this information.
The interlocutor of the agency said that the case was initiated “against unidentified employees” of the company. The investigation is being carried out by the Tver Investigation Department of the Main Investigative Committee of the ICR in Moscow.
According to the source of the agency, the basis for initiating the case was the suspicion that Memorial included in the lists of repressed persons those people “who collaborated with the fascist occupiers during the Great Patriotic War.”
“The investigation believes that a number of Memorial employees equated collaborators with victims of political repression and disseminated deliberately false information about the activities of the USSR during World War II using the media,” the agency’s interlocutor said.
Later, the chairman of the board of the International Memorial, Yan Rachinsky, said RTVIthat he does not know about the initiation of proceedings against the employees of the organization.
In November 2021, the Moscow Prosecutor’s Office filed lawsuits with the Moscow City Court on the liquidation of the Memorial human rights center (recognized as a foreign agent), as well as to the Supreme Court on the liquidation of the International Memorial. The lawsuits listed violations by these organizations of the Foreign Agents Act. On December 28 of the same year, the Supreme Court liquidated the International Memorial, and on December 29 the Moscow City Court liquidated the Memorial human rights center.