Chairman of the Board of the Human Rights Center “Memorial” (recognized in Russia as a foreign agent, liquidated) Oleg Orlov became a defendant in the case of repeated discrediting of the Russian Armed Forces (part 1 of article 280.3, up to three years in prison), according to the Telegram channel “Memorial Society “.
On March 21, the employees of the organization were searched. The Investigative Committee reported that investigative actions were carried out in the case of the rehabilitation of Nazism (paragraph “c” of part 2 of article 354.1 of the Criminal Code). The penalty under the article is a fine of up to 5 million rubles. or imprisonment for up to 5 years.
Later, Memorial reported that Orlov had been released on bail. “The case of repeated discrediting was initiated due to a repost on his Facebook page (owned by Meta, it is recognized as extremist in Russia and banned. – RBC) of his own article “They wanted fascism. They got it,” published by the French edition of Mediapart on November 14, 2022,” the center explained.
Memorial began its work in Russia in the late 1980s, one of its organizers and the first honorary chairman was Academician Andrei Sakharov. The organization was engaged in the study of political repression in the USSR. In 1989, the future first president of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, became a member of Memorial.
The Supreme Court of Russia liquidated Memorial at the end of 2021. In the fall of 2022, Memorial, as well as the Belarusian human rights activist Ales Byalyatsky, and the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties became Nobel Peace Prize laureates. The Memorial called the award a tribute to the entire human rights community, but noted that it is unlikely to help reduce pressure.
The Investigative Committee opened a case on the rehabilitation of Nazism against Memorial in early March. According to a TASS source, the case was opened against unidentified employees of the society, whom the investigation suspected of “equating collaborators with victims of political repression and disseminating deliberately false information about the activities of the USSR during World War II using the media.” The VChK-OGPU Telegram channel wrote that, according to the investigation, “the employees of the society acted in order to publicly deny the facts established by the verdict of the International Military Tribunal.”
Memorial spokesman Nikita Petrov called the organization’s accusations of rehabilitating Nazism “a fabrication of a case from scratch.” He clarified that the society had never denied or questioned the conclusions of the Nuremberg Tribunal. According to him, in assessing Soviet history, the employees relied on the verdict of the Constitutional Court of November 30, 1992.
Administrative and criminal liability for discrediting the actions of the Russian Armed Forces was introduced into Russian law in early March 2022. Later, responsibility was extended to fakes about the work of the National Guard and Russian government agencies abroad, as well as for discrediting all participants in the military operation in Ukraine.