Nobel Peace Prize winning organisation Memorial targeted by Russian government 

“Right now, homes of many employees of Memorial in Moscow are being raided. Lawyers have been alerted,” this message appeared on Telegram channel Society Memorial at 7 AM Moscow time on 21 March. Law enforcement officers raided the flats of nine employees of the liquidated Human Rights Centre Memorial and the centre and the original organisation’s two Moscow offices. 

A criminal case on “rehabilitation of Nazism” against “unidentified persons” from Memorial was mentioned in the search warrants. The detained employees were questioned by police and then set free, after receiving the status of witnesses. But by Tuesday evening, there were reports about a criminal case opened against co-Chair of Memorial Oleg Orlov. 

A criminal case under a different, more “modern” article — repeated “discreditation” of the Russian army. Chairman of the Board of Society Memorial Yan Rachinsky was freed at 11:30 PM after being questioned by the Investigative Committee and being proclaimed a witness in the “rehabilitation of Nazism” case.

Novaya-Europe reports what the Nobel laureates went through on the day of raids and interrogations.

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The documents state that the criminal case was initiated on 3 March 2023 against “unidentified employees” of Memorial. They are accused of adding three specific names to the list of political terror victims. The first person was sent to the camps for working with a German police squad. The other two were servicemen sentenced for high treason, according to Memorial.

The raids were carried out at the homes of Chairman of the Board of Society Memorial Yan Rachinsky, Chairman of the Board of Human Rights Centre Memorial Oleg Orlov, Deputy Chairman of the centre Nikita Petrov, curator of Memorial’s cultural programmes Alexandra Polivanova, her mother, and Memorial’s employees Galina Iordanskaya, Alyona Kozlova, and Irina Ostrovskaya. Furthermore, historian Alexander Guryanov’s flat was also searched.

“They walked into our flat at 7 AM. We don’t have any complaints [about how the police officers were conducting themselves]. <…> They were very polite. They acted embarrassed after noticing my and my husband’s grey hair,” Memorial’s employee Irina Ostrovskaya says. A beautiful, intelligent woman, she is wearing a dark blue coat and a plaid scarf in the same colour scheme. She tells me about the morning events with a half-smile on her face.

Her phone, computer, flash drives, as well as face masks that spell out “We Are Memorial” were seized. 

Alexandra Polivanova, curator of Memorial’s cultural programmes, says that stuff was turned upside down in her flat: “Old family photos… They looked under the bath.”

“They went through the household [items] stocked in the kitchen… But mostly, of course, they were searching through the main room, [looking through] the clothes, my son’s art things. They were searching for anything connected to the word “Memorial”.

They asked about the Memorial database, the database of political repressions victims, how it’s compiled, how the info is verified, what the sources are. When Alexandra asked for the protocol of the interrogation, the investigator asked her: “Do you want to become a suspect? Then we will give you the protocol.” “I decided to wait for the next time,” Alexandra explains.

Late in the evening, having been allowed to leave after his interrogation, historian Alexander Guryanov says that he was asked about the sources he used for compiling the books previously published through Memorial: “I responded, saying these are NKVD [the Interior Ministry of the Soviet Union — translator’s note] archives that are publicly available.”

This is what he had to say about the raid at his flat: “At first, I felt they were very eager. They went through a lot of stuff… But then it was like they got tired. Their first demand was for me to hand over all the papers with the word ‘Memorial’ written on them. In 37 years of my working in Memorial, I’ve stacked up a lot of papers. I told them to look for themselves. <…> I was surprised by the witnesses, though. Very young students. A girl born in 2004. And a boy born in 2000. University students. But they refused to tell me which one. They were too embarrassed to say what university they were from.”

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Moscow, metro station Chekhovskaya. The two raids were carried out nearby — the offices of the International Memorial organisation and of the Human Rights Centre Memorial are located here. The Memorial employees were brought in for questioning to the local police unit not far from the same metro station. 

The human rights centre’s office was also raided in the morning. Lawyer Yevgeny Maslov spent over six hours outside the doors of the office on the street, but he wasn’t allowed to enter after all. A police car was stationed nearby the entire time. The officer at the wheel even fell asleep. From time to time, police officers in black balaclavas would enter the office. Their faces hidden. One of the officers would grip the door handle once in a while — the journalists would watch as the handle slowly went down and then quickly went back up again. 

Around 3 PM, a sturdy tall man came out of the doors, a police officer. “Don’t stand here,” he told the lawyer. Lawyer Maslov asks to at least tell the people inside that he’s here. “I can see the boxes [inside]. Are you finishing up?” the lawyer asks. “Finishing up? We’ve only begun…” the police officer utters. 

A couple of hours later, when the sun started going down, police officers for some reason entered the office with a sledgehammer. 

The office of International Memorial — which was seized after the organisation’s liquidation in favour of the state last autumn — was raided later in the day. Only one police van was stationed near the main entrance. Memorial reported that no one except an attendant was in the building.

The police officer watched for a long time in the rear-view mirror as the journalists recorded videos of the main entrance, then suddenly jumped out of the police van, and asked Novaya-Europe’s correspondent: “What is there to film? Nothing is happening.” 

He didn’t receive an answer and quietly went back to the van. It later turned out that human rights defender, Chairman of Memorial Yan Rachinsky was inside the van at the time. Correspondent for media outlet SOTA recorded the moment when Rachinsky was brought out of the police van for several seconds and moved in the direction of the office, but he was then taken back to the van.

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Yesterday evening, Chairman of the Board Human Rights Centre Memorial Oleg Orlov was charged with “discreditation” of the Russian army.

The case on repeated “discreditation” was initiated because of a Facebook post where he shared his own article titled They wanted fascism. They got it. published by French outlet Mediapart in November 2022. 

Oleg Orlov was released under the condition he would not leave the country, as per the investigator’s decision.

Alexander Cherkasov, President of the Council of Human Rights Centre Memorial said in a conversation with Novaya-Europe: “The question of ‘Why now?’ comes from the fact that any event occurs based on a decision made in that exact moment. The bullet reached its target at this precise moment. But this is a process that has been in development for a long time. The liquidation in 2021, the FSB’s actions throughout 2022. A new wave of persecution against Memorial all over Russia that was obviously launched by the central [government]. In Moscow, this [persecution] looks different. Here, the human rights centre and the International Memorial organisation were liquidated. But that didn’t get rid of them. OK, then we are starting with the raids. Also not working out very well. Let’s seize their office then. They’re still soldiering on. This could be somewhat of a reactive decision, but this story has been developing for a long time.

“The focus was put on those whom they wanted to interrogate the most. Oleg Orlov doesn’t really have anything to do with the Memory books videos. He works on other stuff. But he is one of the most known, most uncompromising, and most unafraid [members of Memorial]. So, they will stick him with a dirty article. ‘Rehabilitation of Nazism’ doesn’t, to put it mildly, sound very good. His investigation is currently being conducted like this: it feels as if Oleg and his lawyer are already under police escort. [by the time this article was published, it was reported that Oleg Orlov had been released from the interrogation on the ‘rehabilitation of Nazism’ case and declared a witness — editor’s note].

“Oleg and Yan [Rachinsky] are fighters. They both worked in Donbas in 2014. While Russian human rights defenders were still allowed to go there, until they were banned from entering. Their report on the 2014 referendum, about how fake it was — it deeply concerned our authorities. This report was mentioned by the prosecutor during the 2021 court hearing about the liquidation of Human Rights Centre Memorial.”

“In Yan’s case, the situation is quite complicated. We’re also talking about retaliation against Yan Rachinsky as a human rights defender. As a person who for over 30 years reported truthful information from war zones. Yan may seem like a person who’s always stuck in the office. But I know that Yan has the same principles whether he is sitting at a desk, being shot at, or being threatened with a rifle. I had the opportunity to see it for myself.”