14 April 2026
The Supreme Court’s decision to declare the human rights group Memorial an extremist organisation has not been published. Is that because the decision is secret or because it is lacking substance?
By Andrei Serov
Source: Novaya gazeta
The decision by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation to declare the ‘international Memorial* movement’ an extremist organisation and ban its activities in Russia gained huge public attention but has remained unpublished as a decision made in camera.
The only information we have at this moment is what was ‘announced’ to the public by the press services of the Supreme Court and the Ministry of Justice, which is very scant and limited.
The task of understanding the decision by means of these announcements alone is harder than the work of the anthropologist Mikhail Gerasimov. That, of course, is quite telling by itself.
But even more telling is the reaction of those who, fervently approving of the decision, are already (and predictably) demanding escalations.
…The Ministry of Justice press service announced that Memorial acted as a civic association without a formal registration both in Russia and abroad, and that their activities displayed elements of extremism as set out in law.
Memorial’s activities, according to the press release, ‘threaten the foundations of the constitutional system, territorial integrity and national security of the Russian Federation’ and are intended to ‘erode historical, cultural, spiritual and moral values’ and ‘incite social and religious division.’
Memorial allegedly has an established structure covering a wide area: 196 people are found to be participating in their activities and receiving financial support, including from abroad.
Memorial is reportedly active in more than half of Russia’s 89 federal regions as well as in several European countries and in Israel.
Memorial’s members allegedly ignore legally binding court orders and recognise persons convicted of involvement in organisations designated in Russia as ‘terrorist organisations’ as ‘political prisoners’.
The Supreme Court’s announcement, meanwhile, claims that: Memorial operates without legal status and has structural subdivisions in the Russian Federation as well as abroad, of which some have been designated as ‘foreign agents’.
Memorial’s activities are allegedly ‘distinctly anti-Russian in nature, intent on the destruction of the foundations of Russian statehood, the violation of Russian territorial integrity, and the eradication of historical, cultural, spiritual and moral values.’
That Memorial activists ‘commit extremist crimes, under the influence of the destructive ideology on which the organisation’s activities are based.’
And that ‘six members of the organisation have been convicted of publicly calling for commission of acts of terrorism, publicly justifying terrorism, organising and participating in the operations of a terrorist organisation and public actions intended to discredit the armed forces of the Russian Federation.’
This all sounds imposing; but you could also say dubious.
For starters, there is no concrete explanation of:
What exactly about the proscribed organisation (whichever organisation they might mean: human rights’ lawyers point out that no organisation exists by the name mentioned in these press releases) presents a ‘threat to the foundations of the constitutional system, territorial integrity and national security of the Russian Federation’ and how exactly do its activities ‘aim to cause social and religious division’?
What exactly constitutes the organisation’s ‘anti-Russian nature’ or its ‘activities to destroy the foundations of Russian statehood and violation of her territorial integrity’?
And what is this ‘destructive ideology on which the organisation in based,’ under the influence of which members carry out extremist crimes?
Nothing publicly known about the activities of the now proscribed Memorial – the preservation of the memory of political repression and its victims (not just in the Stalin era); and the defence of current political prisoners – is in any way related to the above-mentioned allegations.
As for the other allegations listed by both press services, they are not just largely unspecified (like ‘the erosion of historical, cultural, spiritual and moral values’ and the ‘foreign agent status’ of certain ‘structural subdivisions’), but they also do not fit the legal definition of ‘exhibiting signs of extremism.’ They therefore cannot justify the court decision to ban Memorial as ‘extremist’.
As for the guilty verdicts against these, once again unspecified, people, they can only be grounds for banning the organisation if they find people guilty of collective involvement in an organisation labelled ‘extremist’ at the time. None of the organisations under the Memorial umbrella had been officially labelled extremist at the time the verdicts were announced.
Moreover, ‘discrediting the armed forces’ is not legally a form of ‘extremism’; it was nonetheless cited in the Supreme Court press service’s release. This was clearly to reinforce the image of ‘enemy forces’ at work – an image which they, naturally, reinforced with this ban.
We will address separately the claim that participants in Memorial ‘recognise people convicted of participating in the work of organisations designated as terrorist organisations in Russia, as political prisoners.’
The Ministry of Justice may not like this, but legally this cannot be interpreted as ‘signs of extremism.’ After all, the victims of the Stalin purges were convicted of similar crimes, (albeit with different names). And in line with ‘court rulings that entered into force.’ It was only afterwards that the crimes of the State and the innocence of the victims became apparent. And this is not just the opinion of human rights lawyers, but an assessment proclaimed in not-yet-overturned decrees adopted by the highest bodies of state power in the USSR and in Russia…
It is possible that the aforementioned doubts as to the legitimacy of the Supreme Court decisions are unfounded.
However, the best way to do away with these doubts would be to publish the decision of the Supreme Court, so that the arguments put forward by the Ministry of Justice and their assessment by the Court could be evaluated.
And if the decree contains certain personal data (the protection of which is in certain cases a very touchy issue), this could be replaced with less specific information such as initials instead of full names, as is done with court decrees published in the press.
Meanwhile, and fairly predictably, the most zealous individuals, who are good at sensing which way the political wind is blowing, have already begun demanding further steps. The noted Putin propagandist and Duma Deputy Andrei Lugovoi announced that the ban ‘was not a full stop, more of an ellipsis.’
To quote Lugovoi, ‘intensive and demanding work lies ahead to establish connections, punish accomplices and investigate materials placed by Memorial in libraries, educational institutions and foundations under the guise of an ‘educative mission’.
Maybe they need to investigate the Solovetsky Stone and other ‘memorials put up by extremists’, of which there are more than 1500 across Russia: ‘Why were they put there? Are these memorials not symbols of treason, extremism, separatism and fundamentally anti-Russian activity?’
The calls being made are very clear, and do not look at all look difficult to implement at the moment. And indeed, plaques mentioning Memorial at two exhibits in the Yeltsin Centre in Ekaterinburg have just been removed – as ‘a temporary measure caused by the necessity to adhere to legal requirements.’
It is clear that the threat does not stop at memorials to the victims of repression and the Last Address project.
The very historical memory of political repression is under threat. This not only was government policy (and remains, but for how long?) but also earned Memorial the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022.
If those who discuss Stalin’s victims and preserve their memory are proclaimed to be ‘extremists’ and banned, this means the repressions that took place were justified. Those in power would be de facto declaring themselves Stalin’s hairs.
This would have been decidedly unimaginable in December 1989 when Memorial became a registered organisation after the death of Andrei Sakharov (as Elena Bonner requested Mikhail Gorbachev in answer to a question how best to commemorate her late husband’s memory).
Incidentally, when Yeltsin left the Communist Party in Summer 1990, he remained a member of Memorial.
* Designated a ‘foreign agent’, closed down by court order, its international bodies designated ‘undesirable’, and all in sum as an ‘extremist organisation.’
Translated by Oscar Seecharan
