The Guardian, Jan 1, 2015
It [Memorial, a Russian human rights organization] was founded in 1989 by the Nobel peace prize laureate Andrei Sakharov. It had on its staff an extraordinarily brave woman, Natalia Estemirova,
who for years documented war crimes in Chechnya, until she was killed
in 2009. Another Memorial figure, the human rights activist Andrei Mironov, died this summer when caught in crossfire while reporting in eastern Ukraine."
" The Russian supreme court has started procedures to try to close down the organisation. So can Memorial survive in 2015? Anyone who knew these amazing people – I did, along with other journalists who have covered Russia over the years – can understand what a huge impact the closure of Memorial would have. Simply put, it would be the silencing of free voices and a blotting out of memory. It would signal that Russia was indeed entering a dark age."
It [Memorial, a Russian human rights organization] was founded in 1989 by the Nobel peace prize laureate Andrei Sakharov. It had on its staff an extraordinarily brave woman, Natalia Estemirova,
who for years documented war crimes in Chechnya, until she was killed
in 2009. Another Memorial figure, the human rights activist Andrei Mironov, died this summer when caught in crossfire while reporting in eastern Ukraine."" The Russian supreme court has started procedures to try to close down the organisation. So can Memorial survive in 2015? Anyone who knew these amazing people – I did, along with other journalists who have covered Russia over the years – can understand what a huge impact the closure of Memorial would have. Simply put, it would be the silencing of free voices and a blotting out of memory. It would signal that Russia was indeed entering a dark age."
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