Russians commemorated the victims of Soviet state terror on Sunday while the Russian government continues its crackdown on dissent in the country. The Returning of the Names event was organized by the Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights group Memorial, the AP reports. The commemoration has traditionally been held in Moscow on Oct. 29—the eve of Russia's Remembrance Day for the Victims of Political Repression—at the Solovetsky Stone memorial to victims of Soviet-era repression. It centers on the reading out of names of individuals killed during Joseph Stalin's Great Terror of the late 1930s.
Since 2020, Moscow authorities have refused a permit for the demonstration, attributing it to the "epidemiological situation" and a ban on holding public events. Supporters of the commemoration believe the refusal is politically motivated. Memorial itself was ordered to close by the Moscow authorities in November 2021. Although it was shut down as a legal entity, the group still operates in other countries and has continued human rights activities in Russia. Instead of a demonstration on Sunday, Muscovites and several Western ambassadors laid flowers at the Solovetsky Stone. The subdued event took place under a police watch. Memorial also organized a live broadcast of the reading of the victims' names, from Moscow and other Russian cities, as well as from abroad.
The Returning of the Names event comes as Russian prosecutors seek a three-year prison sentence for human rights campaigner and Memorial co-chair Oleg Orlov, per the AP. Orlov was fined around $1,500 this month and convicted of publicly discrediting the Russian military after a Facebook post in which he denounced the invasion of Ukraine, the latest step in a crackdown on activists, independent journalists, and opposition figures. Memorial said on Friday that state prosecutors had appealed the sentence, calling it "excessively lenient."
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