On Wednesday, the Moscow City Court ruled to liquidate the Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG), which is the oldest human rights organization in Russia..

On December 19 last year, the Russian Ministry of Justice filed a petition to liquidate the MGH. He accused the MGH, which has the status of a " outside Moscow. Was delivered? called into question the legality of numerous actions of the MGH, including monitoring by activists of the Group of trials in the regions of the Russian Federation and appeals of the MGH to regional authorities.

As the Novaya Gazeta emphasizes. Europe”, the court decision was made in just one meeting. The pretext for the intervention of the Ministry of Justice was the results of an unscheduled inspection of the MGH, conducted last year at the request of the prosecutor's office..

The head of EU diplomacy criticized Russia for the liquidation of the Moscow Helsinki Group. Josep Borrell tweeted that this is another attack on human rights in Russia.

Decision to shut down #MoscowHelsinkiGroup is yet another attack on human rights in RussiaThe Kremlin is extending its aggression in Ukraine into political repression at home, silencing #humanrightsdefenders, suppressing civil society \u0026 voices rejecting authoritarianism \u0026 war.

— Josep Borrell Fontelles (@JosepBorrellF) January 25, 2023.

The Moscow Helsinki Group was created in 1976 on the initiative of dissidents who united around Andrei Sakharov..

Among its founders was Lyudmila Alekseeva, typist of the USSR's first opposition newsletter, Chronicle of Current Events (1968-72). She was repeatedly detained and interrogated for her activities..

In 1977, under the threat of arrest, Alekseeva was forced to emigrate - she left for the United States, where she documented the activities of dissident circles.. After the collapse of the USSR, in 1993, she returned to Russia, and three years later she headed the Moscow Helsinki Group. She managed it until 2018.