MOSCOW -- The Moscow City Court has ruled that hearings on a prosecutor's request to shut down one of Russia's oldest rights watchdogs, the Memorial Human Rights Center, will begin on December 23.
Dozens of Memorial supporters gathered in front of the court's building on December 16 as the decision was being handed down.
Last month, Moscow prosecutors asked the court to shut down the center, while the Prosecutor-General's Office around the same time asked the Supreme Court to liquidate the umbrella organization, Memorial International, under which the Memorial Human Rights Center and several other activist groups operate.
Prosecutors say the two organizations have "repeatedly violated" Russia's controversial law on "foreign agents," which is increasingly being used by officials to shut down civil society groups and stifle independent media in the country.
The Supreme Court started hearings into the Prosecutor-General's request to shut down Memorial International in November.
Rights activists say that there are no legal grounds to liquidate the organization, which has been devoted since the late 1980s to researching and memorializing the crimes of the Soviet Union, as well as to promoting human rights in Russia and former Soviet republics. They say the prosecutors' demand to shut down Memorial International is "a politically motivated decision."
Meanwhile Memorial has characterized the actions of Russian authorities as "political pressure" and countered that "there are no legal grounds for liquidation."
Russia's so-called "foreign agent" legislation was adopted in 2012 and has been modified repeatedly.
It requires nongovernmental organizations that receive foreign assistance, and that the government deems to be engaged in political activity to be registered, to identify themselves as "foreign agents," and to submit to audits.
Later modifications of the law targeted foreign-funded media, including RFE/RL's Russian Service, six other RFE/RL Russian-language news services, and Current Time.
On December 15, the European Parliament adopted a resolution condemning the persecution and politically motivated attempts of the Russian authorities to liquidate the two veteran human rights groups.
