Moscow Court Dissolves Human Rights Centre Memorial

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - A Moscow City Court on Wednesday ruled to shut down the Memorial Human Rights Centre (which is recognised as a foreign agent in Russia), one day after a top court ruled to close its international affiliate (also a foreign agent), a Sputnik correspondent reported from the courtroom.

"To satisfy the prosecutor's demand, to dissolve Memorial", the judge announced the verdict.

Memorial Chairman Alexander Cherkasov said that the organisation was useful to the state.

"All our activities were aimed at protecting citizens and useful to society and the state. The closure of Memorial is not a solution to the issue. You want to break the red light that signals that something is going wrong", he said in the courtroom.

One of the group's lawyers said the case was "of a political nature" and likened it to trials of Soviet dissidents.

In November, the Prosecutor General's Office and Moscow Prosecutor's Office accused the rights group of justifying terrorism in its publications and violating the "foreign agents" law by repeatedly failing to mark its materials with a relevant warning.

On Tuesday, the Russian Supreme Court ruled to dissolve Memorial International for breaking the law on foreign agents and portraying the Soviet Union as a terrorist state. Among other activities, Memorial also tried to obtain the status of political prisoner for jihadists affiliated with Hizb ut-Tahrir*.

*Hizb ut-Tahrir is a terror group banned in Russia and many other countries