One of Russia’s oldest NGOs could soon disappear. The Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG), an association for the defense of human rights based in the Russian capital, announced on Tuesday December 20 that it was under threat of a request for « liquidation » from the Ministry of Justice.
The Kremlin has already shut down most dissenting voices and dissolved other NGOs, such as that of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Memorial last year. Vladimir Putin’s regime now has Russia’s oldest and most symbolic human rights organizations in its sights. An offensive denounced by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs which “firmly” condemned this request for dissolution.
Founded in 1976, the Moscow Helsinki Group had to ensure that the USSR respected its promises in favor of human rights. These commitments were listed in the Helsinki Final Act, signed in 1975 by the Soviet Union, at the end of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), in the Finnish capital.
Disbanded in 1982, reformed at the fall of the Berlin Wall
This agreement entrusted the group with the drafting of reports on the human rights situation in the USSR, intended for Western nations. It also provided for the creation of other Helsinki groups in satellite countries of the Soviet Union, such as Lithuania, Ukraine or Poland.
During these first years of existence, most of the members of the MHG were arrested or forced to flee the country, including its founder, the nuclear physicist and Russian dissident Yuri Fiodorovitch Orlov. In 1982, one of the only members still at large, the lawyer Sophia Kalistratova, threatened with a lawsuit, was forced to dissolve the organization.
With the fall of the Berlin wall and as repression eased in the USSR, the group reformed. From 1996, under the direction of the historian Lioudmila Alexeïeva, one of the last initial members, the Moscow Group truly acquired NGO status.
Its dissolution condemned by France
Since then, the MHG has become a leading organization in dissent and registering repression in Russia. In addition to its reports, the group annually awards its prize to Russian personalities who have fought for human rights.
The Russian authorities justified the request for liquidation by accusing the NGO of having violated its regional status. He is accused of sending observers to trials and events outside the Russian capital region. According to the Interfax news agency, the fate of the association is now being examined in the Moscow City Court.