The committee awarding the Nobel Peace Prize on Wednesday condemned the "
unfounded
" searches and arrests carried out the day before in Russia against the NGO Memorial, co-winner of the 2022 prize.
The Norwegian committee "deplores the arrest and prosecution" of the president of the NGO Ian Ratchinski and other figures of Memorial, said in a press release its president, Berit Reiss-Andersen.
"
The charges against them are unfounded and must be dropped
," said the committee, whose reactions to the news are rare.
Founded under Mikhail Gorbachev
Last October, Memorial was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, alongside the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties (CCL) and Belarusian activist Ales Beliatski, imprisoned in his country.
Memorial, officially targeted by a dissolution order from the Russian authorities, announced on Tuesday the opening of a criminal case against Oleg Orlov, one of the figures of the NGO.
Earlier in the day, Russian police raided the homes of at least nine employees or their relatives, including Oleg Orlov and Ratchinsky, as well as the Memorial office in Moscow.
These measures follow the opening in early March of a case for "
rehabilitation of Nazism
" against Memorial, said the NGO specializing in the defense of human rights and the investigation of crimes of the Soviet era.
According to Memorial, the authorities accuse him of having included in his list of victims of Soviet repressions the names of three people who would have been convicted of "
treason
" or collaboration with the Nazi regime.
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The NGO, founded in 1989 under Mikhail Gorbachev, had previously called these prosecutions absurd.
She documented the crimes of the USSR for more than 30 years, collecting archives, mounting exhibitions and pressuring the state to recognize its responsibility.
During the announcement of his Nobel Prize, Oleg Orlov had criticized the invasion of Ukraine by his country, saying he felt “
permanent pain and shame in the face of the horrors
” committed by the Russian army.