Memorial is a human rights research and education centre based in Moscow. It was founded towards the end of the Soviet era with the goal of preserving societal memory of political persecution and oppression. Today it works in post-Soviet states, monitoring human rights and helping "to promote mature civil society and democracy based on the rule of law." Tatyana Kasatkina is the Executive Director of Memorial. She spoke to the IJT from her office in Moscow.

By Maria Morina, Moscow

Could you start by explaining the background of Memorial – how and when it started?

It was a period when everybody tried to change something in this country.
 

In 1989-1990 we were witnessing people afraid to put their signature.. they would say, “yes, my relative was imprisoned”, but were too scared to share documents. So at that stage we helped people to overcome their fear. Fear, that accompanied them during all those years. And after that Memorial started focusing on different subjects, still being one movement - human rights today and human rights history are interdependent.

How have things changed since you first started?

In early days of Memorial there was euphoria, we lived on it. Now things are very different. We thought that we are building democracy, and now it turns out that what is built is nowhere near democracy. Now it is more complicated to work, more dreadful. At that time no one was killed. Now people are getting killed, getting imprisoned. Now it is even kind of nauseating to work, because the government talks about democracy, and everything being done for people, while in fact everything is against people.

Could you tell us about different activities of the centre?

Our primary task is defending human rights at national level. But to do that we need to appeal to European level, thus appeared the program appealing to European court. We became focused specialists; it is not community work anymore, but professional services.

We deal mainly with primary human rights: murder, torture, extradition. We are involved with some property rights issues, for example, with refugees – evictions from homes (in the Northern Caucuses region especially, losses of property, etc.)

We hoped to work to prevent conflicts, but unfortunately we are always intervening in the conflict or post-conflict situation. When such situations arise, there is a flow of refugees and immigrants.

What do you see as main obstacles in your work?

The government does not understand the role of human rights organisations, [they] do not understand that human rights organisations should be working for them, not against them to build democracy.

Sometimes we have information they do not have, and we can pass it on to the public prosecution office or other government body. Basically we say – here we found major problem for our country, for our society, so government should listen and solve it, because all we can do is provide information. Unfortunately, authorities try to hide such information, not make it public, and those who make it public get killed. Our colleague Natalia Estemirova was killed for making public information on what was going on in the Chechen Republic.

Authorities see us as enemies very often, despite beautiful phrases about us developing democracy together. The government tries to build a vertical system of civil society - similar to the vertical power structure. They create the Public Chamber that should solve human rights issues and that is controlled by the government. They do not understand that in civil society independent organisations exist which should work together with them towards building democracy.

There is a policy of not allowing much publicity for us…we do not have any media space for discussions. We appear some times on radio Svoboda (“Liberty’’), and Echo Moskvy, but that is very narrow audience. The general public hears that human rights organisations are all CIA agents or whoever else. So we do not have public support, especially on such hard issue as refugees.

When we work in the Chechen Republic people say, “Oh, everyone dealing with Chechnya is sold out”. Not quite clear who is the buyer, but anyway. They try to create a picture, where people from North Caucuses, especially Chechen Republic, are bandits and human rights activists are too. But we fight with this, and there are enough people with common sense who we meet, who learn about what we do, understand us and support us. So we do not operate in vacuum but the government as powerful mechanism do all they can to influence public opinion. Sometimes it seems like we are just trying to break Kremlin walls with our heads, but it leads to no results.

What do you see as your main achievements in last few years?

I think we do a lot. Take first Chechen war. It was December – all was quiet in mass media about what’s going on there, but Kovalev, Borshevsky and few other activists gave us information. It might have been easier to just do cover bombings of the area. But we started to make it public, people starting going on the streets, and everyone were surprised: what? There is war there? And we said yes, there is war, there are bombs, there are dead bodies. And they would say, what? That is our soldiers dead bodies there laying on the streets?? And I said yes, here I have the list of our boys, killed in that terrible war. And we did change something. We attracted international attention. We did all that reports – to raise awareness and stop the war. Of course we did not stop that war completely. But may be we did stop some violence and saved some lives. I see that as achievement.

Similar thing is with refugees issue. It was a completely new problem for Russia. Here in Russia no one expected such a flow. And people were placed in camps, resorts, with no information on their rights, obligations, basically becoming homeless. We managed to organise right processes, worked with Duma to pass relevant laws. We did not do it all by ourselves of course. But we raised awareness, passed on right information, people started to get compensation, living arrangements, we got matters off the ground.

I think that if there were no human rights organisations, the state of law enforcement agencies issues, torture issues, situation in the Chechen republic, in the Dagestan republic, would look grim.

You work closely with the European Human Rights Advocacy Center in London, taking cases to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. How significant is the European Court for Russian rights activists and organisations like Memorial?

Our primary goal is to make national system of human rights protection work. Our country should defend its own citizens. So we feel bitterness when words “Case of Mr X against Russian Federation” are said.

I think it is very important – it is some weapon against Russian justice system. It makes them aware that we can defend people using international mechanisms. Russia should be ashamed that we have to appeal to international court. We would be happy to close this program if Russia would defend it’s citizens.

[Despite winning cases at the ECHR] there is no control over the execution of court decisions [in Russia]. They do pay money, but there are no changes in legislation, no criminal investigations, so we do not prevent further crimes.

What more would you like to see international organisations do to help further your work?

When Natalia Estemirova was killed on 15 July 2009, we felt how international organisations are helping us. Our impression was that they are all gathering around us, all are ready to stand up in front of us to defend us. It was very discernible.

We have a lot of cooperation with international organisations. When we were forced to suspend our activities in the Chechen Republic, because, you know, a human life means a human life, so we don't have a right to risk so much, international organisations helped us. They said, folks, come back to the republic, you will not be alone there, we will be with you - Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Civil Rights Defenders, FIDH. And now our colleague is working there in cooperation with Human Rights Watch.

We felt solidarity of the human rights defenders from all over the world. And we're demanding the international community to enforce Russia to became a democratic state. We want Russia to be a democratic state. And it's not mere words.

Do people feel free to protect their rights to apply for help despite all oppressions?

People became afraid to apply to us… Because Memorial is something frightening today. They know us well, they want to come, but what the [authorities] tell people - if you deal with Memorial, you and your families will have problems. For a good reason we had to send some of our colleagues abroad. And I ask one of my colleagues who is from Chechnya and works there - why is that so? Why are proud Chechen men forced to kneel down? Why do they sign some documents? And why are they not people to be reckoned with?

He answered that he worked during whole war, and it used to be more clear at that time - either bomb killed you or not. And nowadays you go out and you don’t know either you cross the road or not. You can be put in a car and abducted. And nobody will protest, because, you know, this terror covers everything, And it’s awful. More than half of the Chechen men were arrested or kidnapped, tortured sometimes, and forced to sign papers to let on, and these men just keep silence.

And do you see any possibilities to improve the situation?

In 2007 we suddenly noticed that the amount of kidnappings had decreased significantly. We made analyses and realised that it was a result of our attempt to draw attention to the problem. We cried about the kidnapping - most of our reports were devoted to kidnapping issues. At last we think that someone from the top asked Kadyrov to stop any kidnapping, because the leaders were tired to answer the questions. From what I know, he said during a government session - no kidnapping without some evidence any more. They stopped this practice for a while but I think it has resumed now. So I think our efforts mean probably that constant dropping wears away a stone.

I think it’s also our work that helps to change the situation. We try to convince our government to face challenges. Of course, it’s hard. And we don’t see the world green and easy. But without us it’d be much worse. So I hope our work is significant. All our alternative reports, for example about discrimination that our government does not want to notice, all the cases won in European Court, have a great impact on state image.

It is sad that first of all, governments take into consideration politics, then economic issues, and only then human rights. Our goal is to move human rights to the first place.