The International Association of Labour History Institutions is honoured to congratulate Memorial, which has just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 2022 together with human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski from Belarus, and the Ukrainian human rights organisation Center for Civil Liberties. Memorial is a human rights organisation founded in Moscow, Russia, in 1987, and a long-time member of our association.
The award comes in a critical moment, as Memorial has been forced to closure by Russian authorities. Last February, Russia’s Supreme Court approved the liquidation of the organization and last month there was an attempt to seize its premises, which included the freezing of private bank accounts of some of its members.
IALHI closely follows the legal situation of Memorial and takes this celebration as a new opportunity to express support to its activities. IALHI’s last conference, held in Zurich in September 2022, unanimously decided to endorse the statement that the Board of the IALHI made last year about the threats on Memorial. Once again, IALHI underscores that Memorial’s existence is vital to the maintenance of a disinterested archival record of Russian social and political history. Its archives and library resources exist to give Russian researchers and the international research community unique information vital to historical research. Memorial’s mission is shared by all IALHI members.
Updated information of the legal situation of Memorial can be found in their Twitter account https://twitter.com/EnMemorial