Such decision was adopted at the general meeting of the Moscow Helsinki Group on 21 January

Press Release, 22.01.2019

Three Co-Chairs of the Moscow Helsinki Group were elected at the general meeting of the organisation. Valery Borschyov, leader of Yabloko’s Human Rights Faction and member of the Human Rights Council of Russia, Vyacheslav Bakhmin, founder of the Sakharov Centre, and Dmitry Makarov, Co-Chairman of the coordinating council of the international Youth Human Rights Movement, were elected Co-Chairs of the Group.

Valery Borschyov is the leader of Yabloko’s Human Rights Faction and member of the party’s Federal Political Committee. He has been member of the Moscow Helsinki Group since 1989. He became an active participant in the human rights movement since the mid-1970s after meeting with Acad. Andrei Sakharov. In the 1980s, Valery Borschyov worked at the Solzhenitsyn Foundation, was engaged in organising aid to political prisoners and their families. He is currently Co-Chair of the Association of Independent Public Observers for the Inspection of Places of Imprisonment, member of the Human Rights Council of Russia, and member of the advisory human rights group of the expert council under the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation.

According to the information from the Moscow Helsinki Group web-site, members of the organisation confirmed their willingness to maintain the work and traditions laid by Yuri Orlov, Lyudmila Alexeyeva and their associates back in 1976 when the Moscow Helsinki Group was created. The Moscow Helsinki Group considers “defusing international tensions and promoting the European choice of the country’s development, including in cooperation with international institutions for the protection of human rights within the framework of the UN, OSCE, Council of Europe” be one of its main tasks.

Former Moscow Helsinki Group leader Lyudmila Alexeyeva died in December 2018.