Moscow Helsinki Group 30th Anniversary: From the Secret Files (National Security Archive, George Washington University)May 12, 2006 - Thirty years ago today, the physicist Yuri Orlov gathered a small group of human rights activists in the apartment of prominent Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov in Moscow to establish what today is the oldest functioning human rights organization in Russia - the Moscow Helsinki Watch Group (MHG) - thus serving as an inspiration for a new wave of human rights activism in the Soviet Union and around the world.
In honor of that anniversary, the National Security Archive at George Washington University today posted on the Web a series of documents from the former Soviet Union related to the Moscow Helsinki Group, including the KGB's reports to the Central Committee of the Communist Party about the "anti-social elements" who started the group 30 years ago, and the various repressive measures the KGB took "to put an end to their hostile activities."