Triumvirate to Head Moscow Helsinki Group after Alekseyeva’s Passing

Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 22 – Following the death of Lyudmila Alekseyeva in December, the Moscow Helsinki Group faced the impossible task of finding a successor to a woman who for decades personified the human rights movement in Russia.  Yesterday, it chose three men – Vyacheslav Bakhmin, Valery Borshev, and Dmitry Makarov -- to lead the group into the future.

            At a meeting of the group yesterday, its members recommitted themselves to following the line of work and traditions which Lyudmila Alekseyeva, Yury Orlov and their comrades in arms outlined when they founded the Moscow Helsinki Group in 1976 (mhg.ru/news/sostoyalos-obshchee-sobranie-chlenov-mhg).

            Bakhmin, 71, has been a member of the Moscow Helsinki Group since 1989 and was one of the founders of the Sakharov Center. Borshev, 75, was a Yabloko deputy in the first and second Russian Dumas and author of the law on public control. And Markarov, 37, who has been a member of the group only since 2017, nonetheless has distinguished himself.

            He was one of the initiators and is a member of the Council of the OSCE’s International civic Initiative and vice president of the coordinating council of the International Youth Human Rights Movement.