Moscow court shuts down Russia's oldest rights group

The Moscow City Court on Wednesday granted a request of the Russian Justice Ministry to "dissolve" the Moscow Helsinki Group amid efforts to stifle the country's few remaining voices of dissent.

The organization was one of the only surviving independent rights groups in Russia after the closure of the Nobel Prize-winner Memorial in 2021.

What was said in court?

Russia's Justice Ministry filed a lawsuit against the group, claiming it was only registered to defend human rights in Moscow and not in other parts of the country.

It demanded that the organization, which was also accused of inconsistencies with the law within its charter, "must be punished accordingly."

Reading out the decision, Judge Mikhail Kazakov concurred. "The [Justice Ministry's] claim is granted," he said.

Representatives of the Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG), which was founded decades ago by Soviet dissident scientists, said the argument was nonsensical.

In an emotional plea on Wednesday, group co-chair Valery Borshov told the court that liquidating the group would put an end to decades of work by activists.

"The MHG is the oldest human rights organization in the country and, from the first days of its existence, it has been carrying out extensive consolidating work. The claims made are absurd. Human rights are extraterritorial," Borshov said in comments reported by the Mediazona media outlet.

"The ease with which you decide our fate amazes me. How is it possible to destroy what took decades to build with such ease?"

Representatives of the group have said they will appeal.

What is the Moscow Helsinki Group?

The Moscow Helsinki Group was founded in 1976 to demand freedom for political prisoners and the establishment of democratic rights.

Among the group's founders was Lyudmila Alexeyeva, a human rights pioneer and dissident who challenged both the Soviet and Russian regimes over decades.

Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Alexeyeva at her home with flowers in 2017 to offer his personal congratulations and thanks for her work. She died in 2018.

Russian authorities in 2021 shut down Memorial, another prominent rights group formed during the Soviet era.

Since Russia launched its war in Ukraine last February, Putin has ramped up a drive to suppress critical voices, including those of independent media, nongovernmental rights groups, and political opponents.

Many have found themselves designated "foreign agents," a label that brings with it additional government scrutiny and bears strong negative connotations.

The Kremlin had used an array of laws to stifle critics of the war, for example imposing prison terms of up to 15 years for distributing "false information" about the military.

rc/nm (AFP, Reuters, AP)