The Sakharov Center, ultimate space of freedom, closed by Russian justice

The harsh Russian legislation against any area of ​​freedom has struck again in Russia. The Sakharov Museum and Center, created in 1996 to preserve the legacy of human rights activist and Nobel Prize in Physics Andrei Sakharov, was dissolved on Friday August 18 by the Moscow court at the request of the Ministry of Justice , according to the Russian news agency Interfax.

Academician Andrei Sakharov (1921-1989), father of the H-bomb in Russia and nuclear physicist, was one of the most famous Soviet dissidents. The center notably organized conferences and reflections on democratic values ​​and freedom. In 2015, an evening commemorating the death of the murdered journalist Boris Nemtsov was organized.

After an inspection between 2020 and 2022, the Sakharov Center allegedly committed three violations, according to a statement from the Ministry of Justice. Among the offenses are the holding of events outside Moscow, "contrary to the charter of the organization", the publication of ten videos on which were not affixed the mention "foreign agent", now imposed by the power, as well as the “incompatibility” of the NGO's statutes with Russian law. For activists, these charges are nothing more than pretexts to shut down a critical organization.

At the same time, the fate of another organization is being played out, “Golos” (“voice” in Russian), a famous social movement which, since 2000, has deployed observers to monitor the holding of elections at all levels. Its co-president, Grigory Melkonyants, was declared a suspect on the grounds of "organizing the activities of an undesirable organization" and arrested in Moscow on August 17, for a two-month pre-trial detention. “The current wave of pressure is undoubtedly related to the upcoming gubernatorial elections in 26 regions of Russia in September,” Russian human rights activist Alexander Cherkasov explains on Facebook.

Since the introduction of the law on foreign agents, the Moscow authorities have made life difficult for this space for dialogue and citizens' initiatives: in December 2014 already, the Sakharov Center had been registered by the Ministry of Justice in the register of organizations recognized as "foreign agents".

On December 1, 2022, this same law was amended. It now stipulates that the said “agents” must not benefit from any public support. However, all its premises being rented by the city of Moscow, the Sakharov center received a letter at the beginning of January from the real estate service of the Russian capital informing it that the rental lease had been terminated for all the property that he occupied (the center building, the showroom and the apartment on Zemlianoi Val Street, the former place of residence of Andrei Sakharov and his wife Elena Bonner).

Since the center was therefore forced to move outside of Russia, its director Sergueï Loukachevski, in exile in Germany, had assured AFP that in the event of dissolution, the NGO would be reconstituted in Russia in the form of a "collective ".

The Sakharov Center is the latest Russian human rights organization to bite the dust. Memorial, the oldest Russian NGO best known for its research on Soviet-era repressions, was dissolved in December 2021.

This year, after the dissolution of the Moscow Helsinki Group, the oldest human rights NGO in Russia, it was the turn of the Sova Center in April 2023. This research center specializing in the study of racism and xenophobia in Russia carried the last critical voices of the war in Ukraine