The Moscow Times: Russia on Tuesday confirmed 36,818 Covid-19 infections and 1,240 deaths.
RFE/RL: “We consider this assault by the prosecutor’s office to be just one of many actions by the authorities in recent times that are systematically intended to suppress the institutions of civil society, among which Memorial occupies a leading position,” reads a November 12 statement by Moscow’s Sakharov Center.
RFE/RL: A group of leading Russian scholars has called on the authorities to reconsider a move aimed at shutting down one of Russia’s most respected human rights groups — Memorial. More than 60 Russian scholars, including members of the Academy of Sciences and the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Center, said the announcement last week by Memorial that it had been notified by Russia’s Supreme Court that prosecutors had filed a demand to dissolve the group over systematic violations of “foreign agent” legislation “is an attempt to deprive the nation of its memory.”
Front Line Defenders: On 11 November 2021, the International Historical and Human Rights Society ‘Memorial’ (International Memorial) received a notice from the Supreme Court of Russian Federation, stating that the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation filed a motion to permanently shut down the association citing systemic violation of the “foreign agents” law. The court hearing is scheduled for 25 November 2021. On the same day, Human Rights Center “Memorial” (HRC “Memorial”) received a confirmation that the Prosecutor’s Office in Moscow filed a motion to the Moscow City Court to permanently shut down the HRC Memorial; the date of the hearing is not yet confirmed.
Human Rights in Ukraine: Russia has come up with yet another charge against Nariman Dzhelyal, First Deputy Head of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis, who has been imprisoned since shortly after he attended the inaugural meeting of the international Crimea Platform on 23 August. That meeting, which elicited hysteria from Moscow, was attended by high-ranking representatives of 45 countries and Dzhelyal had ignored clear threats from the occupation regime by taking part and by speaking publicly about the dire huge rights situation in occupied Crimea.
RFE/RL: The European Union is planning to draw up a list of possible sanctions against a Russian mercenary group involved in multiple global conflicts, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said.
Meduza: Russia’s oldest human rights organization, Memorial International, is under threat. Last week, prosecutors filed a lawsuit with the Supreme Court seeking to shut down Memorial over “systematic violations” of Russia’s legislation on “foreign agents.” One of Memorial’s greatest projects is a database of victims of the USSR’s political terror, a resource that has connected countless people with information about their relatives lost to the purges. In their own words, the descendants of Soviet terror victims recount how Memorial helped them uncover their family histories and share their thoughts on the authorities going after the rights group.
