27 December 2022
by Valery Borshchev, co-chair of Moscow Helsinki Group
Source: Moscow Helsinki Group [original source: Собеседник].
I don’t think the government will succeed in what they are trying to do. The Moscow Helsinki Group was, is and will be. We’ll find a way to stand up for ourselves.
Last week, the Ministry of Justice filed a lawsuit to liquidate the oldest human rights organisation in Russia, the Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG), and to completely ban its activities within the country.
The MHG, like other human rights organisations, fell under a wave of repressions, but much later than Memorial and the For Human Rights movement – in my opinion, this is part of a single ongoing process of destroying civil society and the human rights movement.
I am sure that the Ministry of Justice’s lawsuit was not an independent decision, but launched from above. At what level, I cannot say. Still, the liquidation of the MHG is a challenge for us.
The claims that the Ministry of Justice have brought forward are untenable. We are being accused due to the fact that representatives of the MHG went to attend court proceedings in other regions. To Aleksandr Shestun’s trial, for example, or to Ingushetia. In other words, were we only supposed to be active in Moscow? Is going to court and observing the proceedings a violation of our founding charter? That’s absurd. On the contrary, it is observing the Constitution, which explicitly mentions that the State guarantees the protection of human rights, and in this sense there are no restrictions.
Even if officials find that this is a violation, this is not grounds for liquidation. And of course, we will defend the rightness of our stance in court.
We do not have foreign funding (the MHG renounced foreign funding with the advent of the law on foreign agents – ed.). In this regard, it was difficult to come up with something against us. They thought for a long time and now they not only intend to liquidate MHG as a legal entity, but to destroy it as a brand, to erase any mention of its existence. It really is beyond belief!
The MHG was established in 1976. In 1982, when most of its members were arrested by the KGB, it decided to disband itself. In other words, the MHG was able to exist under the Soviet regime. And here its existence is prohibited.
I don’t think the government will succeed in what they are trying to do. The Moscow Helsinki Group was, is and will be. We’ll find a way to stand up for ourselves.
Translated by Tyler Langendorfer
