BRUSSELS, October 23 (RIA Novosti) – The European Parliament adopted a resolution Thursday, urging Russia to withdraw its lawsuit against the Memorial human rights organization.
"MEPs strongly condemned the Russian Ministry of Justice's appeal to the Supreme Court to close down the independent rights organisation Memorial and urged the Ministry to withdraw its lawsuit before the hearing scheduled for 13 November 2014," the resolution said.
On Tuesday, President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz expressed concern over Russia's plans to liquidate Memorial.
On October 13, the press service of the Russian Ministry of Justice told RIA Novosti that the reason why the ministry had asked the country's top court to abolish Memorial was that the organization had repeatedly and grossly violated the Russian law.
Earlier in October, the chief of Memorial's Moscow chapter said the society was going to appeal the suit at many court levels, including the Constitutional Court.
Founded in 1989 under the auspices of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov, Memorial has been monitoring human rights in Russia and other post-Soviet countries.
