The recent raid of the Memorial Research and Information Center in St Petersburg is an alarming and disturbing event. Organizations such as Amnesty International, scholars, and private individuals concerned about the tendencies to re-write Russian and Soviet history have reacted by writing to persons in positions of power and law enforcement insisting that the seized documents are returned to their rightful owners.
I take to liberty of writing you to inform you of these sad developments and to share with you the information that I have to date. One of the attached documents is a letter of appeal that I have received in a message from Orlando Figes, in which he informs me that on Dec 8, 2008 he sent this letter with several hundred signatures to Russia, as requested by Memorial in St Petersburg. The letter may also be seen on the website of Index on Censorship:
http://www.indexoncensorship.o... It should also appear on the website of the radio station Ekho Moskvy.
Should you decide to write on the matter, feel free to use the appeal attached here as a template for your message. Perhaps, you would also wish to send a copy of your message to Beth Holmgren, President of the AAASS, at , as AAASS Executive Committee is considering preparing a letter of protest.
Thank you in advance for speaking out in defense of the Memorial Research and Information Center in St Petersburg, and of the freedom of academic inquiry.
