Russia delays hearing on rights group shutdown

Russia's Supreme Court on Wednesday pushed back a hearing to close down the renowned rights group Memorial to late January, the organisation said.

The lawsuit by the justice ministry is seen by many as the latest move by the Kremlin to squash civil society.

Memorial made its name researching Soviet-era repression and does human rights work all over Russia.

At Wednesday's hearing the court decided to wait for the ministry to examine new documents the organisation has provided to correct alleged violations in its charter, Memorial's president Arseny Roginsky told AFP.

The next hearing will be on January 28, he said. The justice ministry argues that the organisation's charter does not correspond to its actual activities and that it has committed a range of other violations, such as misreporting funding from abroad.