Monitoring of current events in Russia: activities of the democratic part of Russian society - end of 2024
December 22, 2024 | Current Russia
December marks many important commemorations of human rights struggles, many of which are directly related to Memorial's work. We cover them in detail in a Czech-language article, and below is just a brief excerpt.
One of such dates is December 5. On this day in 1965, the first (after Stalin's death) mass protest demonstration took place in Moscow, with participants speaking in support of the arrested writers Sinyavsky and Daniel.
On December 5, 2024, Memorial volunteers gathered in the same place.
Another such date is December 8 -- the day of the death of the famous dissident Anatoly Marchenko. On this day in 2024, historian Oleg Novoselov went to the center of Yekaterinburg with a solitary picket.
Another proof that the Russian authorities are openly fighting against the memory of Soviet political repressions came in the words of Valery Fadeyev, chairman of the Russian HRC, who sharply criticized the Solovetsky Stone. This monument to the victims of Soviet repression was erected in the center of Moscow in 1990 on the initiative of the Memorial Society.
The Russian authorities have traditionally continued to put pressure on human rights defenders, including our colleague Sergei Davidis, co-chair of the Human Rights Center “Memorial”. In late November, he was included in the Russian list of extremists and terrorists.
Among those persecuted for political reasons in Russia, the number of minors is growing, not only Russians but also Ukrainians. Another crime of the Russian state is the deliberate involvement of minors from the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories in Russian paramilitary “patriotic” organizations such as the Unarmy. As a result, children and teenagers find themselves under a very strong influence of Russian propaganda, and some of them even join the Russian army.
People who still live in Russia and still wish to support political prisoners can do so not only by writing letters to them, but also by attending these unfair trials in person. The picture below shows a fragment of the trial of politician Alexei Gorinov.
One positive news by the end of the year was that human rights activist and former political prisoner Oleg Orlov was awarded the title of honorary citizen of Paris.
On Human Rights Day, December 10, this street graffiti appeared in St. Petersburg. It says: “The darker the night, the brighter the stars”.
