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Civil Society Under Siege

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Posted: November 23rd, 2015

By Tanya Lokshina

Tanya Lokshina is the Russia program director and a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch and is based in Moscow. Lokshina has authored several reports on Russia's turbulent North Caucasus region and co-authored a report on violations of international humanitarian law during the 2008 armed conflict in Georgia.

The Russian government accused Human Rights Center Memorial, the country’s leading human rights organization, of plotting against the regime. The brazen accusation came in mid-November after three and a half years of the Kremlin’s staggering crackdown on critics of the government. Memorial has been a target all along, but this takes the Kremlin’s onslaught on independent groups to a chilling new level.

Memorial’s dedicated work, including in war zones, has been honored with prestigious international awards, such as the European Parliament’s Andrei Sakharov Prize. But in a recent report summarizing its investigation of the organization, the Justice Ministry described Memorial’s work as aimed at “undermining the foundations of Russia’s constitutional rule” and “calling for overthrowing the country’s political regime.”

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