Without squeal

What is important is the statement of former members of the HRC regarding the liquidation of the Moscow Helsinki Group

For those who are in the subject, the reason, however, is also not an ordinary one: the oldest human rights organization - the Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG) was eliminated on January 25 on duty on January 25. All its founders in the USSR went through prisons, psychiatric hospitals, links or forced emigration, but lasted 8 years (from 1976 to 1984), and Judge Mikhail Kazakov needed it to destroy less working days.

In recent years, until its death, the ICG was led by the legendary Lyudmila Mikhailovna Alekseeva in 2018. As part of the HRC, she was, without exaggeration, the most respected member, whose statements did not dare to ignore even President Putin. At least the memory of her requires her comrades of intelligible statement.

When the Main Directorate of the Moscow Justice in December presented its ridiculous, but obviously victorious administrative lawsuit against the MHG, the Presidential Council for Human Rights said nothing (not counting its individual members, which are worthy of special respect). The HRC will be silent further, but for those who have done everything that was possible for many years to protect the rights of citizens of the country and their human dignity, silence here is also unacceptable - it is also unacceptable -

This is a matter of conscience and honor, and not just a “reputation”, which someday after you can “wash” a little bit.

In the first edition of this text - a statement in defense of the ICG - it was proposed to call it a “statement of members of the HRC in exile,” but the irony did not meet understanding from our colleagues: most of us remains and intends to stay in Russia further. In addition, in an abbreviated form (and in the working title of the file) it was designated as “spect-visp” . So: let's be without a screech. Not everyone who signed this statement is ready to tear their hair and put themselves in the risk of bringing to justice for, alas, to all well -known articles - especially since most of the signatures are not so young.

It is more important not even who signed this statement, but who did not sign it:

You yourself can compare the signatures under it (and the list will probably be supplemented, you have not managed to contact everyone in one day) with a list of surnames on the official website of the HRC.

The statement is before you, it also spreads on behalf of it on social networks.

I think that more important reasons for the statements of “hinge members in exile” will still appear, although each of them will probably agree to put his signature each of the participants in this in connection with the liquidation of the MHG of the Commonwealth - and also a kind of structure of civil society.

Leonid Nikitinsky (announced the exit from the HRC on February 24, 2022)

Full text

"The liquidation of MHG is an action against democracy"

Application of members of the HRC who were part of it in different years

We, members of the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights, who were part of the Special Aviation Society in accordance with the decrees of the two presidents in different years, without waiting for the expression of the official position of the Council, we believe that the Mosgorsud decision on the liquidation of the Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG), as well as the liquidation of the Memorial and Human Rights of the Memorial Earlier. They were recognized as foreign agents ), as well as the recent announcement of the “undesirable organization” of the Andrei Sakharov Foundation, the essence of the action that enters into a glaring contradiction with the policy of democratization and the development of civil society in Russia, which the Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights tried to maintain many years.

The lack of reaction to the lawsuit’s claim for the liquidation of the ICG by the current composition of the HRC (excluding its individual members) causes us disappointment, especially since the chairman of the ICG - Lyudmila Mikhailovna Alekseeva - was one of the most respected members of the Council to his death in 2018. The arguments of the Ministry of Justice about the violation of the MHG “declared framework of its territorial activity” on the only grounds that this public organization is registered in Moscow are unscrupulous and ridiculous: human rights are universal, and their protection cannot be limited to the “principle of registration”.

The Commonwealth of Former Directors of the CNC is an informal unification of their good relations and the general principles of people who were part of the President of the Russian Federation in different years, but excluded from its composition by the decrees of the President who came out of it on their own initiative in connection with a disagreement with the general line of activity of the Council or remaining in the Council, but do not share the point of view of its majority.

• Alexander Verkhovsky

• Svetlana Gannushkina

• Natalia Evdokimova

• Ivan Zasursky

• Igor Kalyapin

• Leonid Nikitinsky

• Dmitry Oreshkin

• Elena Panfilova

• Ella Polyakova

• Vladimir Ryakhovsky

• Nikolai Svanidze

• Olga Sidorovich

• Anita Soboleva

• Alexander Sokurov

• Ilya Shablinsky

• Ekaterina Shulman

(The list is open)

* Entered the Russian authorities in the register of "foreign agents".