In news- Recently, Russia’s Supreme Court ordered the closure of Memorial International, which is one of the country’s most prominent and oldest human rights organizations.
About Memorial International-
- It is a non-commercial organization studying political repressions in the USSR and in present-day Russia and promoting moral and legal rehabilitation of persons subjected to political repressions.
- It was founded in 1992 in Moscow.
- Its predecessor, Moscow initiative group Memorial, emerged in 1987 and gave rise to a number of regional organizations and groups.
- One of the founders of the memorial is the 1975 Nobel peace prize winner Andrei Sakharov, father of the Soviet Hydrogen bomb, who later became an opponent of nuclear tests.
- Its purpose is the recording of the crimes against humanity committed in the Soviet Union, particularly during the Stalinist era.
- Memorial’s creation was a response to growing public awareness of historic abuses within the Soviet Union during the 1980s, as well concern about contemporary human rights, especially in certain “hotspots” around the USSR.
- This took place within the context of perestroika (reconstruction) and glasnost (openness), policies pursued by president Mikhail Gorbachev which led to increased government transparency and tolerance of civil society.
- Aims and objectives of Memorial International are:
- Promoting development of civil society and democratic state with the rule of law excluding the possibility of return to totalitarianism.
- Participating in forming public consciousness on the basis of values of democracy and law, overcoming totalitarian stereotypes and asserting the rights of individuals in political practice and social life.
- Participating in restoring historical truth and perpetuation of memory of victims of political repressions of totalitarian regimes.
Source: The Indian Express
