Russia dissolves the Helsinki Group, the oldest human rights NGO
The lawyer for the Moscow Helsinki Group speaks to the media alongside members of the NGO after the hearing announcing its dissolution, January 25, 2023. REUTERS - EVGENIA NOVOZHENINA
Text by: RFI Follow
3 mins
The NGO is accused of carrying out activities outside the Moscow region, in violation of its regional status, including sending observers to trials or its members to events in other regions of the country.
Advertising
Read more
The judge didn't even bother to keep up appearances: the decision was made in 20 minutes and announced in less than 30 seconds.
A Moscow court on Wednesday ordered the closure of the Moscow Helsinki Group.
Russian justice is thus attacking the oldest human rights NGO in the country.
At the end of December, the Moscow department of the Ministry of Justice had filed a request asking for the dissolution of the group and its ban on Russian territory.
“
A new attack on human rights
”
"
It's symbolic, because it's the first organization for the defense of human rights created during the time of the Soviet Union
,
"
laments Lev Ponomarev, a member of the Moscow Helsinki Group since 1996, who has had to go into exile in France, after having received the status of "foreign agent".
The Moscow Helsinki Group was created to ensure compliance by the USSR with its human rights commitments, made in the Helsinki Final Act in 1975 at the end of the Conference on Security and cooperation in Europe.
“
The Moscow Helsinki Group was not registered in the register of foreign agents, because it did not receive foreign funding,
” he underlines.
The NGO had precisely decided to do without this funding in an attempt to protect itself.
And we could have said to ourselves that there was no reason to attack her because she hardly received any money, she only employed two or three people, it had become almost a confidential association which maintained contact with human rights defenders in the provinces.
All this shows that in Putin's Russia, the very term "human rights defender" is synonymous with "enemy of the people".
Human rights defenders are enemies of Russia or foreign agents.
The head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell deplored "
a new attack on human rights in Russia
".
"
The Kremlin is extending its aggression in Ukraine to political repression in its country, silencing human rights defenders, suppressing civil society and voices that reject authoritarianism and war
," he wrote on Twitter.
Decision to shut down #MoscowHelsinkiGroup is yet another attack on human rights in Russia
The Kremlin is extending its aggression in Ukraine into political repression at home, silencing #humanrightsdefenders, suppressing civil society & voices rejecting authoritarianism & war.
— Josep Borrell Fontelles (@JosepBorrellF) January 25, 2023
“
Of course we will fight
”
The NGO has been accused of carrying out activities outside the Moscow region, in violation of its regional status, including sending observers to trials or its members to events in other regions of the country .
A procedure reminiscent of the one that led, last winter, to
the dissolution of the Memorial NGO
, another pillar of the defense of human rights and the memory of victims of Soviet crimes.
“
Everything is artificial, they invented everything,
protests Valery Vasilyevich Borshchev, a famous dissident of the Soviet Union and current president of the Helsinki group.
VS
t is the trend of the moment, to break any movement for the protection of human rights.
First they shut down Memorial and now they're going after the Moscow Helsinki Group.
It's a blow to the movement.
Because the authority of the Moscow Helsinki Group is significant, and it enjoys moral authority in the media, government organizations, human rights organizations and even among the authorities.
Of course we will fight.
Of course, it is increasingly difficult, really difficult, because the authorities have distanced themselves from the human rights and cooperation organizations that existed before.
»
The NGO's lawyers immediately announced their intention to appeal the dissolution.
Newsletter
Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
Russia
NGO
Human rights