Russia orders shutdown of Memorial rights group

(28 Dec 2021) Russia s Supreme Court has ruled on Tuesday that one of the country s oldest and most prominent human rights organizations should be shut down. The Prosecutor General s Office last month petitioned the Supreme Court to revoke the legal status of Memorial an international human rights group that rose to prominence for its studies of political repression in the Soviet Union and currently encompasses more than 50 smaller groups in Russia and abroad. The court on Tuesday ruled in favour of the prosecution, which charged at the hearing that Memorial creates a false image of the USSR as a terrorist state, whitewashes and rehabilitates Nazi Memorial was declared a foreign agent in 2016 a label that implies additional government scrutiny and carries strong pejorative connotations that can discredit the targeted organization. In their lawsuit to shut it down, prosecutors alleged that the group repeatedly violated regulations obliging it