Memorial appealed to the Supreme Court against the refusal to issue copies of the protocols of the NKVD "troikas"

We are talking about the decision of the Petrozavodsk City Court dated June 17, 2020, the appeal ruling of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Karelia dated September 7, 2020, as well as the cassation ruling of the Third General Jurisdiction Court of Cassation dated April 7, 2021, which supported the refusal of the Central Federal Security Service of the Republic of Karelia to provide the plaintiff with the opportunity to photograph the protocols "Troikas" of the NKVD or to issue an invoice to pay for the services of the archive for copying these documents as confirmation of the historical truth.

Requested papers - 46 protocols of the "troika" of the NKVD of the KASSR and 32 protocols of the "special troika" of the NKVD of the KASSR. As reported in "Memorial", they are required for the study of the "Great Terror in Karelia". In their refusal, the service representatives refer to the lack of a paid photocopying service, as well as to the prohibition of photographing archival documents.

“In fact, the FSB interferes with obtaining copies of documents about the Great Terror in Karelia in order to protect the honor and business reputation of the NKVD officers who falsified cases against citizens,” said Arseny Levinson, a representative of Memorial.

The courts that upheld the refusal of the FSB, in turn, referred to the law on the rehabilitation of victims of political repression and the Order of the Ministry of Culture of Russia, indicating that the plaintiff had no right to copy documents since he was not rehabilitated or a relative of the rehabilitated.

Recall that the human rights center "Memorial" was fined more than two dozen times by the Moscow courts for violating the law on "foreign agents". The total amount of the fine was over 4 million rubles.