Supreme Court decision on Memorial is based on law - Memorial
MOSCOW. Jan 28 (Interfax) - Memorial believes the decision made by the Russian Supreme Court, which has declined the lawsuit seeking the society's closure, is based on law.
"The court decision is base don law. It would have been absurd and stupid to rule to close Memorial now that the Justice Ministry has agreed that all irregularities found by it have been corrected," Memorial board member Oleg Orlov said on Wednesday.
At the same time, he said that human rights activists believe the Justice Ministry's claim was based on a technicality. "All their demands are reduced to the demand that our every step, sneeze, every minimal action should be accompanied by a lot of paperwork," he said.
In September 2014, the Justice Ministry filed a motion with the Supreme Court seeking the Memorial society's liquidation because of the irregularities found in its activities, particularly in its structure.
Russian Human Rights Commissioner Ella Pamfilova spoke in defense of Memorial. She asked President Vladimir Putin to exercise his authority to make sure that the motion on Memorial's closure be withdrawn.
A Justice Ministry official told the court on Wednesday that Memorial had corrected all violations that led to the lawsuit seeking its closure. The Supreme Court then declined the Justice Ministry's lawsuit.
Memorial specializes, in particular, in matters related to the rehabilitation of victims of Stalin-era reprisals and educational programs. The society includes the Memorial center monitoring human rights in the North Caucasus, which was earlier put on the register of nonprofit organizations acting as foreign agents in Russia.