Nobel Committee Calls Imprisonment Of Veteran Russian Rights Defender 'Politically Motivated'

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has called the imprisonment of Oleg Orlov, the co-chairman of the Russian rights group Memorial, which shared the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, "politically motivated."

A court in Moscow on February 27 sentenced the 70-year veteran rights defender to 2 1/2 years in prison of charge of "repeatedly discrediting" the Russian military involved in Moscow’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

"The sentence against Mr. Orlov is politically motivated and provides another proof of the increasing disrespect for human rights and freedom of speech in today’s Russia," Jorgen Watne Frydnes, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said in a statement on February 28.

He added that Russian President Vladimir Putin's "regime has for many years tried to silence the leadership of Memorial and other important civil society organizations in Russia, and they are now using the war on Ukraine as a pretext to finish the job. It is important that they won’t succeed."

Memorial was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022 for its outstanding efforts in documenting war crimes, human rights abuses, and the abuse of power in the former Soviet Union as well as in post-Soviet Russia.

Orlov reiterated his innocence on February 27 in his final statement shortly before the verdict and sentence were announced, stressing that Russian authorities have banned "any independent opinion."

The children and grandchildren of Russian officials "will be ashamed to talk about where their fathers, mothers, grandfathers, and grandmothers served and what they did. And the same will happen to those who, by carrying out orders, are committing crimes in Ukraine. In my view, this is the worst punishment, and it is inevitable," Orlov said.

Orlov was fined 150,000 rubles ($1,630) in October on a charge that stemmed from several single-person pickets he held condemning Russia's aggression against Ukraine and an article he wrote criticizing the Russian government for sending troops to Ukraine that was published in the French magazine Mediapart.

In mid-December, the Moscow City Court canceled that ruling and sent Orlov's case back to prosecutors, who appealed the sentence, saying it was too mild.

Earlier this month, investigators updated the charge against the rights defender, saying that his alleged misdeeds were motivated by "ideological enmity against traditional Russian spiritual, moral, and patriotic values."

Memorial has noted the case was reinvestigated hastily, while Orlov said he thought investigators received an order to move quickly with the case to allow for the retrial.

Orlov gained prominence as one of Russia's leading human rights activists after he co-founded the Memorial human rights center following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

In 2004-06, Orlov was a member of the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights Institutions.

For his contribution to human rights in Russia, Orlov was awarded in 2009 with the Sakharov Prize, an international award for individuals or groups who have dedicated their lives to the defense of human rights and freedom of thought.