2:00pm-4:00pm on Friday 8 April
Times shown are in GMT (UTC +0) up to the 26th March. For events on or after 27th March times are in BST (UTC +1).
Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), SG1, Alison Richard Building 7 West Road, CB3 9DT
"Enemies of the people" once again: why do Russian authorities want to shut down Memorial?
Memorial is the oldest human rights organization in Russia, one that has become a symbol of the civil society. On November 11, 2021 the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation filed a lawsuit with the Supreme Court for the liquidation of the International Memorial. In addition, Moscow’s Prosecutor's Office appealed to the Moscow City Court with a request to liquidate the ‘Memorial’ Human Rights Centre. The reason is the repeated violation of the ‘foreign agents’ law. The Human Rights Centre is additionally accused of justifying extremist and terrorist activity.
The documentary we are screening was produced by TV Rain, one of Russia’s few remaining independent media. TV Rain interviewed those who had stood at the foundation of Memorial a couple of years before the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It tells the story of a small group of dissidents who were able to gather and preserve the forbidden memories of the Gulag and speculates about what could happen to the database of the victims of Soviet persecution if the organization is shut down.
The screening features an opening speech from Nobel laureate Dmitry Muratov, as well as a short discussion with human rights defenders afterward.
Anna Dobrovolskaya is an executive director of Memorial Human Rights Centre and a human rights activist. She worked as a chief executive officer at Human Rights House Voronezh between 2009 and an Editor at the German-Russian Exchange from 2017 to 2021. Anna represents a young generation of human rights defenders both in her vision and actions. In her work she focuses on knowledge-sharing, valuing diversity and creating impact opportunities beyond finger-pointing.
Luke Haring is a journalist, writer, and award-winning correspondent with the Guardian. He has reported from Delhi, Berlin, and Moscow, and covered wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. Between 2007 and 2011, he was the Guardian’s Moscow bureau chief until the Kremlin deported him from the country in February 2011. He is the author of several books, among those are Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win and Shadow State: Murder, Mayhem and Russia's Remaking of the West.
Event in Partnership with CRASSH and The Cambridge Film Festival
