MOSCOW, Dec 28, 2021 (AFP) – Russia’s Supreme Court ordered Tuesday the closure of Memorial, the country’s most prominent rights group that symbolised post-Soviet democratisation and chronicled Stalin-era purges for the past three decades.

The court ruling against Memorial International, the group’s central structure, caps a year that began with the jailing of President Vladimir Putin’s top critic Alexei Navalny and saw a historic crackdown on rights groups and independent media.

But the ban against Memorial stands out even in the current climate and would have been unimaginable just a few years ago.

Judge Alla Nazarova ordered the closure of Memorial International and its regional branches after prosecutors accused the organisation of failing to mark its publications with a label of “foreign agent”, the tag for groups that receive funds from overseas.

“Disgrace! Disgrace!” supporters shouted in court after the ruling.

Prosecutors also accused Memorial International of denigrating the memory of the Soviet Union and its victories and rehabilitating “Nazi criminals”.

During Tuesday’s hearing, a prosecutor said Memorial “creates a false image of the USSR as a terrorist state and denigrates the memory of World War II”.

The court decision is the hardest blow yet to the organisation founded in 1989 by Soviet dissidents including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov. The ruling came after Putin accused the group of advocating for “terrorist and extremist organisations”.

Lawyer Maria Eismont said the shutdown was a “very bad sign” but added that Memorial would appeal and press ahead with its work.

“This is not the end,” she told reporters.

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