Yekaterinburg court fines local Memorial branch more than $3,000 for online posts by unrelated group

A Yekaterinburg court has reportedly fined the local branch of the human rights organization Memorial 300,000 rubles ($3,700) on charges of “discrediting” the Russian army, the newspaper Kommersant has reported, citing the group’s director, Alexey Mosin.

According to Mosin, the case was sparked by a post on a website called Ural Memorial, which has no connection to Mosin’s organization.

“I don’t have access to that site and I didn’t post anything there. But the court wouldn’t listen to us; the decision was made in a minute, and none of our appeals were considered.”

Additionally, Ural Memorial said in a post that the site’s head, Anatoly Svechnikov, sent a statement to the court that said he was the site’s only owner and the only person who has published anything on it.

Alexey Mosin plans to appeal the court’s ruling.

In late April 2023, Alexey Mosin was hit with two misdemeanor charges for allegedly “discrediting” the Russian army based on posts that appeared on Ural Memorial. The case documents included more than 100 posts from the site, including a statement from Memorial International marking the one-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The Russian authorities dissolved Memorial International and the Memorial Human Rights Center in December 2021. In 2022, Memorial was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, along with the Ukrainian organization Center for Civil Liberties and jailed Belarusian activist Ales Byalyatski.