The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland notes with concern and disappointment the today’s ruling of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation on the liquidation of the International Memorial Society. It is one of Russia’s oldest, best-known and distinguished civil society organisations, whose activists are involved in, among other things, defending human rights and research aimed at documenting Stalinist crimes. The results of the Society’s work are an invaluable achievement of civil society in Russia.

The Republic of Poland is grateful and has a high regard for the Society’s immense effort to reveal the truth about repressions against Poles, in particular the Katyn Massacre, the Augustów Roundup, and the Polish Operation by the NKVD. However highly restrictive in terms of possible research into the Russian state’s totalitarian past, today’s ruling will not cast the victims of the repressions into oblivion.

The Republic of Poland strongly condemns all forms of human rights violations, including systemic repression against civil society, the opposition, human rights defenders, and independent media outlets.

 

Łukasz Jasina
MFA Press Spokesperson