Russia blocks website of Moscow Helsinki Group, the country’s oldest human rights organization

Russian authorities have blocked the website of the Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG), says digital rights organization Roskomsvoboda. No reason for the blocking has been reported.

In January, a Moscow court granted the Russian justice ministry’s request to terminate MHG activities. The justice ministry claimed that MHG violated laws pertaining to social organizations by operating outside of the Moscow region

The Moscow Helsinki Group was founded in 1976 to contribute the USSR’s fulfillment of the humanitarian obligations it assumed when it signed the Helsinki Accords in 1975. One of its co-founders was the famous historian and human rights advocate Lyudmila Alexeyeva, who headed the group from 1996 until her death in 2018. Since its formation, the MHG was subject to constant persecution and repression by the KGB and other Soviet law enforcement agencies, which arrested or forced into emigration over a dozen MHG members between 1976 and 1982.