On April 9 Russia’s Supreme Court announced via Telegram that it had banned the activities of the human rights organization Memorial across the country after a closed-door hearing treated as secret. Foreign media and diplomats from Germany, Sweden, the Czech Republic and France were reportedly allowed only to attend the reading of the verdict, a move that drew sharp international criticism.
The Nobel Committee, which awarded Memorial the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, condemned the decision. The European Union delegation in Moscow called the ruling a politically motivated attack on civil society, noting that the state had previously praised and even supported Memorial and included some of its members on official human rights bodies.
Memorial’s lawyers said the court labeled the “International Public Movement Memorial” as extremist, despite no such legal entity being registered in Russia or elsewhere. They argued the vague designation appears designed to give authorities a pretext to target any branch, staff member or supporter of organizations using the Memorial name. Sergei Davidis, who runs Memorial’s program for political prisoners, said the Justice Ministry’s case remained secret and representatives of the group were barred from the hearing. He warned the state was trying to extinguish independent sources of information as public dissatisfaction grows.
Founded in 1987, Memorial has been one of Russia’s leading independent institutions documenting Soviet-era political repression. Its archives contain tens of thousands of documents, oral histories, personal collections and research on the gulag system. Independent outlet Mediazona reported that authorities could now attempt to seize the archive as property of an “extremist” organization. In a related case in 2023, Aleksandr Chernyshov, head of the Perm Center of Historical Memory, was arrested amid allegations he sought to transfer archival materials abroad.
Persecution of Memorial’s Russian operations has been ongoing for years. In 2014 the Justice Ministry designated its Russian branch a “foreign agent,” a label later extended to its international arm, bringing special reporting rules, fines and operational limits. In 2021 the Supreme Court ordered the dissolution of Memorial International for alleged breaches of the foreign agent laws and accused the group of misrepresenting Soviet history. Pressure continued into 2023 when authorities searched the homes and offices of nine Memorial staff, including prominent activists Oleg Orlov and Yan Rachinsky. Orlov was later convicted of “discrediting” the military, sentenced to two and a half years, and released in a prisoner swap in August 2024; he now lives in Germany.
After the April ruling, Memorial said it would suspend all activities inside Russia while continuing its work abroad. The organization temporarily disabled sharing and commenting on its social media channels, advised Russian supporters to follow safety instructions on its website, and warned people not to donate or display logos and links. It urged followers to delete potentially compromising material from devices and cautioned that simply subscribing to Memorial channels could draw law enforcement scrutiny, including for people abroad.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee called the designation an affront to basic values of human dignity and free expression. Russian political scientist Aleksandr Kynev said the move represented a new, harsher phase of repression that would make ordinary employees vulnerable. Davidis stressed Memorial’s decentralized structure and said public interest in both historical and contemporary political persecution remains strong, urging activists to carry on despite elevated risks.
Co-founder Irina Sherbakova framed the ban as part of a broader strategy to rewrite or suppress collective memory of Soviet crimes. She pointed to other recent steps such as the 2024 closure of the Gulag History Museum, removal of Last Address commemorative plaques, tighter limits on archive access and changes to official commemorations that omit references to mass repression and rehabilitation. Human rights activist Anna Karetnikova said the Federal Security Service views Memorial’s work—preserving the memory of repression and defending political prisoners—as a threat, and warned that the “extremist” label paves the way for further criminal investigations and intensified pressure on civil society.
Originally published in Russian.