By: Violeta Krasnic, Posted: Dec 5 08

Regions: Russia

Issues: Freedom of opinion & expression, Police brutality, Violence

Tags: Chechyna, Crying Sun, human rights archives, memorial, Missing Lives

The offices of WITNESS' core partner Memorial  were raided in St. Petersburg (video here) on December 4 when seven masked Russian law enforcement officers "broke into the office, cutting the phone lines and barring the three staff members present from leaving the office."  The search lasted more than seven hours and resulted in seizure of hard drives and other documents, most notably the twenty years of archives on political repression during the Soviet time. "All these years of work are now in the hands of the investigators and we do not know when and in what condition it will be returned," a Memorial staff member said. The Prosecutor's Office ordered the search as part of a probe against a local newspaper which published "extremist" articles. According to Memorial, the organization has no ties to the newspaper nor an awareness of the investigation. Some believe that Memorial might have been targeted in connection to their recent screening of a film on Alexsander Litvinenko, the former Russian spy and victim of radioactive poisoning in London in 2006. Human Rights Watch called on the government to "take every possible step to protect the materials and return them quickly."