Russia has decided to close the Sakharov Center, the last bastion of freedom for Kremlin opponents, human rights defenders and opponents of the military campaign in Ukraine.
“In a country that is not free, there can be no island of freedom. We live under a dictatorship,” said Sergey Lukashevsky, director of the center, who has been in exile in Berlin since the beginning of the conflict.
Established seven years after the death of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize winner, the Sakharov Center hosts exhibitions, conferences, concerts, films and plays, most of which are independent.
In addition, the two buildings house a library and two permanent exhibitions, one on Sakharov’s life and the other on the history of the dissident movement in the Soviet Union. The adjoining garden is dominated by a fragment of the Berlin Wall.
The center’s days are numbered, as the Public Prosecutor’s Office has decided to expel the historical institution as a threat to the security and constitutional order in this country.
“The accusation that we are undermining state security is ridiculous. What is happening is that because the Kremlin is terribly afraid of freedom of expression, we are a dangerous platform,” said Lukashevsky, who was fined 3 million rubles by default on Friday. (about 39,560 euros).
He recalled that over the years his space has brought together people who disagree with the politics and the dominant state of mind in Russia, based on “xenophobia, chauvinism, suppression of human rights and disrespect for human dignity”.
First it was the turn of Russia’s leading non-governmental organization (NGO), Memorial. Earlier this week it was the turn of the oldest, the Moscow Helsinki Group, and now the most influential.
In this case, the excuse is a new amendment stipulating that foreign agents cannot receive state funding either, allowing the Moscow City Council to terminate the lease and issue the eviction order.
The eviction, which comes on top of the fine of 5 million rubles (more than 64,400 euros) that the organization received in December, “is the first step towards liquidation,” said the director.
The director of the Sakharov Center said that the activities of the center are closely linked to the building in which it is housed, but that it, like the other liquidated organizations, will continue to operate.
Russian President Vladimir Putin “has no need for civil society, that is, an independent voice to denounce human rights problems.”
Lukashevski believes that Russia has already crossed the red line and become a “typical personalist dictatorship”.
“A regime based on violence, which rules society by fear, where there is no political variety and where one person runs the state almost alone for more than 20 years is a dictatorship,” he accused.
In Russia you can hardly go out, there is no independent press, there is no freedom of speech or assembly and the last levers of freedom have been removed, he added.
Source: DN
