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Human Rights Work of “Memorial”
“Memorial” began initially as an historical and educational association with a significant part of its work dedicated to protecting human rights. Each of “Memorial”'s regional divisions is involved in protecting human rights, specifically in vindicating the rights of former prisoners.
The organization appeals to society to not forget the cruel and massive human rights violations in our country's past, but also not to ignore that human rights violations continue to occur.
In the spring of 1989, authorities brutally broke up a meeting in Tbilisi, leading to many deaths. In Moscow, “Memorial” organized a series of protest actions.
Through the year, “Memorial” repeatedly posted pickets at the building of the
General Procurator of the U.S.S.R. demanding freedom for all the then-remaining political prisoners in the U.S.S.R. Towards autumn, a legal defense group grew out of this work: the association “Memorial”. In 1991 “Memorial”'s Human Rights Center was established to organize and coordinate “Memorial”'s human rights' work.
The Human Rights Center “Memorial” Moscow concentrates its activities on human rights violations in zones of armed conflicts in the Russian Federation, so called “hot spots”, and on the protection of refugees and victims of discrimination and political persecution. Accordingly, several programmes have been set up, which often are closely interlinked.
The Human Rights Center works in partnership with “Memorial”'s regional organizations, many which also work to protect human rights. Much of the activity is carried out in Voronezh, Yekaterinburg, Nizhniy Tagil, Novosibirsk, Orel, Ryazan, Tomsk, Kharkov, Chelyabinsk and other towns.