Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatović called on the Russian authorities to reverse the decision to close down Memorial and the Memorial human rights center (both recognized as foreign NGOs in Russia).

"The Russian authorities should immediately reverse the decisions to liquidate Memorial's nonprofit organizations and change their hostile attitude toward independent civil society, the media, and human rights defenders," the European ombudsman said in a statement released Wednesday.

"The decisions by Russian courts yesterday and today to close down two well-known human rights groups, Memorial International and the Memorial Human Rights Center on the basis of the law on so-called 'foreign agents,' are a regrettable step that will have serious negative consequences for the protection of human rights in Russia," Mijatović stressed.

"In November of this year, I have already called on the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation to stop the process of liquidation of these NGOs, and I have repeatedly reiterated that the law on so-called 'foreign agents' is repressive in nature. Using it as a tool to liquidate human rights nonprofit organizations, which are long-time partners of my office, contradicts Russia's human rights commitments," the CoE commissioner said in a statement.

"On this day, I express my solidarity with all human rights defenders who bravely and tirelessly defend human rights in Russia," Mijatović said.

As a reminder, in November, it became known that the Prosecutor's Office intends to seek the liquidation of two Memorial structures. The Prosecutor General's Office submitted one claim for liquidation of the "Memorial" educational society to the Supreme Court. The second, on the liquidation of the Memorial human rights center, was filed by the Moscow City Prosecutor's Office to the Moscow City Court.

The grounds for the court action, as stated in the General Prosecutor's Office complaint, were the repeated gross violations by Memorial of the laws of the Russian Federation and other legal acts.