LONDON, April 9 – Russian human rights group Memorial was designated an “extremist” movement on Thursday in a closed-door hearing of the country’s Supreme Court, state news agency TASS said.
The ruling – the latest in a sweeping, years-long crackdown on free speech in Russia – provides a legal mechanism for authorities to prosecute anyone who contributes to the work of the Nobel Prize-wining organisation or shares material that it publishes.
Memorial said shortly before the judgment was announced that it had no doubt about the outcome.
“The case against Memorial is yet another attempt to intimidate all dissent in the country and force civil society into silence,” it said in a statement.
Memorial was founded in the late 1980s to document political repression in the Soviet Union. It has defended freedom of speech and recorded human rights abuses from the time of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin to the present.
In December 2021, less than two mont