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Moscow City Court dissolves foreign-agent listed NGO

"The court decreed to fully satisfy the stated claims of the Public Prosecutor’s office on the liquidation of the Memorial Human Rights Center interregional civic organization," the judge said

MOSCOW, December 29. /TASS/. The Moscow City Court handed down a verdict to dissolve the Memorial Human Rights Center (recognized as a foreign agent in Russia), satisfying the lawsuit of Moscow’s Public Prosecutor’s office, a TASS correspondent reported from the court.

"The court decreed to fully satisfy the stated claims of the Public Prosecutor’s office on the liquidation of the Memorial Human Rights Center interregional civic organization," the judge said.

The court announced only the resolutory part of the decision, its motives remain unknown. According to the Public Prosecutor’s office, Memorial and its leadership were repeatedly fined for the absence of a "foreign agent" mark on their websites and on social networks. The organization emphasized that all the fines were paid.

According to a TASS correspondent, diplomats from Spain, Estonia, Lithuania, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, the US and Germany were present in court.

Memorial’s attorneys plan to appeal the verdict, lawyer Maria Eismont told journalists. "We will definitely appeal this decision as soon as we receive its full text. By law, we have 30 days to submit an appeal," she said, noting that she was ready to address both the appeals and supervisory authorities and following that - the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

Earlier, the Russian Supreme Court made a decision to dissolve the International Memorial historical educational society (recognized as a foreign agent in Russia) for breaching the foreign agents law. Simultaneously, the Moscow Prosecutor’s office filed a similar suit against the Russian Memorial Human Rights Center. International Memorial was put on the list of foreign agent non-profits in 2016. In recent years, the group has been repeatedly fined by courts for violating the law on foreign agents. The organization stressed that it did not breach the law.