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New Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth: Contacts to Memorial
Photo: CHRISTIAN MANG / AFP
As Minister of State for Culture, Claudia Roth has so far been cautious, the new role sometimes calls for restraint due to foreign policy issues.
However, following the dissolution of the Memorial organization by the Russian Supreme Court, Roth clearly formulated its first serve with an international message.
She said it was about "massive strikes against Russian civil society, the consequences of which are not yet in sight."
By this Roth meant not only the decision of the Supreme Court to dissolve the umbrella organization Memorial International, but also the decision of a Moscow court to dissolve the organization's human rights center.
Roth, who maintains contacts with Memorial representatives, also addressed in her written declaration what threatens to disappear with the organization in Russia.
This has made enormous contributions to coming to terms with the past and has also set standards for the European culture of remembrance.
»In addition to many other topics, this also applies to the documentation of the fate of hundreds of thousands of forced laborers in Germany.
In addition to coming to terms with the past, Memorial has always stood up for the protection of civil and human rights in Russia, «said Roth.
The processing of one's own history is an enrichment for every society.
"Only with knowledge of the crimes of the past can new injustices in the future be prevented."
According to Roth, her thoughts are “with many courageous members and activists of Memorial who have become friends through various encounters”.
The organization was founded in the 1980s by civil rights activists around the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov.
A few days after taking office, Roth visited the Buchenwald concentration camp memorial in Thuringia.
Over 56,000 prisoners died there of torture, medical experiments and emaciation during the Nazi regime, most of them Jews.
It is very important to her to set an example at the beginning of her new job, "the importance of the culture of remembrance," said Roth during her visit on December 11th.
Foundations appeal to the traffic light coalition and the EU
The Böll Foundation, which is close to the Greens, and numerous other organizations such as the German PEN Center, meanwhile, issued a joint declaration in favor of concrete help for Memorial. They called on the German government and the European Union to "do everything in their power to preserve the work and the Memorial archive and to protect its employees."
The two Green politicians Ralf Fücks, long-time head of the Böll Foundation, and the former commissioner for foreigners in the red-green federal government, Marieluise Beck, called on the traffic light coalition and the EU to carry out a “thorough assessment” on behalf of their “Center for Liberal Modernity” the effects of the judgment «on German-Russian relations. »Memorial - the oldest human rights organization in Russia - will liquidate an island of free thought and one of the last bastions of democratic civil society. Such a judgment is unthinkable without political direction from above, «said Beck and Fücks.
The Foreign Office had already criticized the decision in Russia against Memorial International on Tuesday.
A spokeswoman for Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called the dissolution measures "more than incomprehensible".
The decision contradicts international obligations to protect basic civil rights, which Russia has also entered into.
In addition, the decision will deprive the victims of oppression and repression of their votes.
Action before the European Court of Human Rights
Jan Ratschinski, member of the management team at Memorial, has meanwhile announced that he will take action against the judgment at the European Court of Human Rights.
You now have 30 days for this.
The public prosecutor had accused the human rights center Memorial of having "actively" supported extremist organizations and of having "violated human rights and freedoms" themselves.
This justifies the dissolution of the organization.
The Memorial Human Rights Center focuses on the rights of political prisoners in Russia and of minorities such as migrants and homosexuals.
Every year the center publishes a list of political prisoners.
Most recently, the center repeatedly referred to the fate of the imprisoned opposition politician Alexej Navalny, whose organizations in Russia are classified as "extremist".
