The Russian Justice Ministry is seeking the closure of the country’s oldest human rights watchdog, the Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG), amid a Kremlin campaign to muzzle criticism of the war in Ukraine. The ministry's motion appeared on the Moscow City Court's website on December 20. MHG was established in 1976 by prominent Soviet dissidents in the apartment of legendary rights defender and physicist Andrei Sakharov. Its members were arrested or forced into exile soon after MHG was founded. The group revived its operations in Russia in the late 1980s. To read the original story from RFE/RL's Russian Service, click here.
Russian Justice Ministry Seeks Closure Of Country's Oldest Human Rights Group
Lyudmila Alekseyeva, who died in 2018, was one of the founders of the Moscow Helsinki Group.