Moscow Helsinki Group's 30th Anniversary

Established on May 12, 1976 by a small circle of brave human rights activists, the Moscow Helsinki Group boldly sought to promote the Soviet Union’s implementation of the 1975 Helsinki accord -- an agreement linking security among states to respect for human rights within states. At a press conference held in Nobel Laureate Andrei Sakharov’s apartment announcing the Group’s formation, the Group’s leader, physicist Yuri Orlov, asked those present to join him in the traditional toast of Soviet dissidents: "To the success of our hopeless cause!"

Thanks in great measure to the courage, perseverance and sacrifice of the Moscow Helsinki Group members -- and the work of the citizens’ groups that they inspired elsewhere in the Soviet Union and Eastern and Central Europe -- the Helsinki process has not just borne witness to historic changes once thought to be hopeless causes, it has helped to bring those changes about.

In the noble tradition of its founding members, the dedicated men and women of today’s Moscow Helsinki Group are calling attention to current human rights challenges and continuing to work for peaceful, democratic change. By so doing they are serving the cause of freedom and strengthening the foundation for lasting security.