During two days, March 11-12 Perm police and security men arrested, searched and interrogated former activists of the local Department of historical, educational, charitable and human rights society International Memorial. They are subjected again to pressure from the state authorities.
March 11 as a result of the investigative procedures a volunteer of the Perm Department of the International Memorial was arrested. He spent two days in pre-trial detention and was sentenced to fine for insubordination to police. Security men demanded from him to give information about the Perm Memorial archive, presently kept in Moscow.
March 11 and 12 police and security men executed a search in the private apartment of Alexander Chernyshov, a head of the Perm Historical Memory Center that became a successor of the Perm Department of the International Memorial. Also search was executed in the office of the Perm Historical Memory Center. As it was reported in the media release of the Perm Branch of Memorial, police and officers of the Department of Countering Extremism didn’t present any search warrants. They didn’t give copies of the interrogation records to the detained and forbid them to call in lawyers.
As it became known earlier, a criminal case against activists of the International Memorial was initiated by members of the civic movement “Veterans of Russia”. They charge Memorial with rehabilitation of Nazism.