Thread by @jenssiegert

The raid of Memorial’s office in Moscow on Thursday evening has left a new, in my opinion soon iconic picture illustrating the state of freedom in Putin’s Russia: The office doors of the country’s best-known rights defenders locked with handcuffs.

Now, two days ahead we, Memorial and many others, are still trying to make sense of this. This is, what I think so far.
1. The raid was planned and administered by state agencies, may be by the Kremlin.

2. All participants, the TV team of NTV, the group of young men, who stormed the office and the scene of the film screening, the police and other security agencies were working together.

3. The action was part of a new wave of attacks on Memorial, which began already earlier (two days ahead NTV aired a new defaming “report” on Memorial), and it will go on.

4. First, again, what happened: The NTV team tried to get into the office, where the film screening to place. Memorial didn’t let them in. After some time the group of 25 to 35 young men arrived. They weren’t let in either.

5. But some of them had made it already inside, masking as ordinary visitors. They opened a side-door from inside and let them in. They were behaving very abrasive, storming the conference hall shouting like prison guards or riot squads.

6. On the scene they were continuing to shout for about 10 minutes slogans like “shame”, “we don’t forget, we don’t forgive”, “this is our history”. The audience kept astonishingly quiet. Then the gang went quiet.

7. Some from the audience tried to involve them in a discussion, asking them, what they want. But to no avail. Nothing than the already heard slogans came back.

This and their behavior let to the conclusion that they most probably were a hired group, may be of football hooligans, which are known to work for the police from time to time.

8. Memorial called the police and the gang quickly disappeared. Memorial staff succeeded to get hold of three of them, which were handed over to the police. This was first normal police from the nearest-by police station.

9. First the police not really seemed to know, what to do. They let some people go, took the three detained invaders with them to the police station, were they disappeared. It is not known whether there is an investigation into them.

10. Shortly after other security forces arrived. Among them were the National Guard (anti-riot unit), the Center E (police unit to fight “extremism”), the State Investigation Committee (sort of FBI) and a police unit for fighting economic crime.

11. They were commanded by a Lieutenant-Colonel, a rather high rank in such cases. They were behaving rude. Instead investigating the intrusion of the office, they were threatening Memorial and the visitors of the film screening like suspects (and not like the victims they were).

12. Police now demanded to search all rooms of Memorial’s building, not only the public accessible (were the intrudes have been), but locked office rooms as well. Memorial denied.

Police was insisting. Memorial staff overheard that some police officer among themselves were talking about confiscation all computers.

13. Police was not letting Memorial’s advocates in, which by this time had arrived at the office, but after some time two advocates succeeded to get in through a window. They could convince the police that searching closed office rooms would be unlawful.

14. At some point the commander got a phone call. From this point on the behavior of the police forces changed. They first let visitors go and, after some time, the Memorial staff, too. At app. 2 am the police left Memorial’s office.

The raid lasted about half an hour at most. The police stayed 6 hours.

15. The next morning two officers from the economic crime unit came with a summons for Monday morning (18th Oct) and a long list of documents, Memorial will have to provide.

The decision to open an investigation about possible economic crimes against Memorial was dated several hours before the film screening in last Thursday evening began. Another lead to the assumption that the whole thing was a pre-planned plot by the security forces.

16. The economic crime investigation is something new (it never happened so far to Memorial) and something very worrying. The economic crime unit has special authorities and is much less restrained through procedural protocols.

Faked economic crimes have been used in the past often as a pretext for political repression. The most prominent victim of them is the imprisoned politician Alexey Navalny.

17. Moreover, the economic crime unit has the power to close Memorial’s office down, without asking a court in advance.

Despite the experience that courts very rarely contradict the several security services demands, their approval is an added procedural hurdle, which from time to time slows things down.

18. In addition, an economic crime investigation constitutes a direct threat for Memorial’s managerial staff. At least the managing director and the financial director are criminally liable for any infringements.

19. Another threat for Memorial is the confiscation of the computer, controlling not only the security system of the office, but of the fire protection system as well. The fire service may now come at any time to close the office.

20. A lot, if not everything will now depend on the investigation of the economic crime unit. The outcome of this investigation will depend, there is no doubt, on a political decision to be made in the Kremlin.

21. As much as we know there are two opinions in the Kremlin. One that won’t consider any reactions of the public or western countries and want to close Memorial down. Another that assumes such a crackdown not useful (for whatever reasons).

If this assumption is right (and it is a simplified assumption anyway), the raid and other recent attacks most probably are an attempt to push the former consideration and overcome latter one. The next days will show. /End