Paul
Goble
Staunton, February 5 – Lyudmila
Alekseyeva, head of the Moscow Helsinki Group and a longtime defender of the
rights of her fellow citizens against Moscow’s violation of their rights, has
been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, an award many believe she should win
and one that they believe could protect her in the face of the increasing repression
by the Kremlin.
Yesterday,
Moscow’s “Novyye izvestiya” reported Alekseyeva’s nomination – the deadline for
doing so was January 31 – and interviewed her about that and about her current
concerns (www.newizv.ru/politics/2013-02-04/177074-presedetale-moskovskoj-helsinkskoj-gruppy-ljudmila-alekseeva.html).
Alekseyeva, 85, said
she was “grateful” for this nomination but said she did not “particularly
believe” that she would win the prize “because there are many candidates. Among them are many worthy people, and [she
said she was] not sure that [she has] a serious chance.” But she said she was
grateful to those who had put forward her name.
Instead,
she talked about the difficulties she and other human rights organizations face
in the Russian Federation as a result of the 2012 law requiring that they
declare themselves to be foreign “agents,” a word she pointed out that in
Russia is equivalent to “spies,” if they accept assistance from abroad.
The
Moscow Helsinki Group head then expressed as she often does optimism about the
future. She noted that “the reaction of society to the Pussy Riot case, the
mass meetings in Moscow and other cities all took place under human rights
slogans: for honest elections, for the freeing of political prisoners, for the
improvement of the judicial system.”
But at the same time, she said she is
worried by the direction the Russian government is taking on many fronts. As
she put it in a recent interview to the Voice of America, Moscow’s recent
actions have put Russia “at the border of totalitarianism” (www.golos-ameriki.ru/content/interview-ludmila-alekseeva-hrw-report-human-rghts/1595144.html).
US Senator Benjamin L. Cardin, who chairs
the Congressional Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, was among
those nominating Alekseyeva for the Nobel Peace Prize. In his January 29 letter to the Norwegian
Nobel Committee, he noted that Alekseyeva is “fondly referred to by many as the
Dean of Russia’s human rights corps” and that “her work over a half-century
helped bend the arc of history toward justice.”
“Alekseyeva’s effort remain contemporary
and needed in a Russia where some in positions of power seek to circumscribe
the universality of human rights even as they work to undo the gains made since
the collapse of communism,” the US senator wrote, adding that Alekseyeva “continues
her life’s vocation of holding a candle to the darkness and inspiring a new
generation of activists to defend the freedom and democracy that is their
birthright.”
At 85, he continued, “she remains
undaunted by threats and harassment, constructive in her willingness to engage
authorities to advance the good, and ever the optimist for Russia’s future.” As
such, Alekseyeva “is more than a human rights defender, she is a peacemaker,”
and deserves recognition as such by the Nobel Committee.
Alekseyeva has
had a remarkable life. Born in Crimea on July 20, 1927, she grew up in Moscow
and graduated from Moscow State University in 1950 as an archaeologist and from
the Moscow Economic Statistics Institute in 1956. She taught history in a Moscow teacher
training school and as an editor at the Academy of Sciences publishing house
and the Institute of Scientific Information on the Social Sciences (INION) and
was a member of both the Komsomol and the CPSU.
Beginning in the 1960s, however, her
apartment became the unofficial headquarters of the emerging distant movement,
and she took part in protests about the trial of Sinyavsky and Daniel and
others. In 1968, she was excluded from
the Communist Party and fired from her government jobs. That allowed her time
to become the typist for “Chronicle of Current Events,” the first samizdat
human rights bulletin.
In 1976, she helped to form the Moscow
Helsinki Group, but less than a year later, she was forced to emigrate from the
USSR. She settled in the United States – in 1982, she became an American
citizen -- and prepared her fundamental history of the dissident movement in
the USSR, worked with Radio Liberty and the Voice of America, and participated
as a member of the US delegation to OSCE conferences in Rekjavik and Paris.
In 1993, Alekseyeva returned to
Russia, and three years later was elected chairman of the Moscow Helsinki
Group. Between 1998 and 2003, she also served as president of the International
Helsinki Federation. Beginning in 2002,
she served as a member and then as an expert advisor to the Russian
Presidential Commission on Human Rights. But at all times, Alekseyeva has been
an outspoken defender of the human rights of all citizens of the Russian
Federation and an equally vocal critique of the violation of these rights by Moscow.
For that, Lyudmila Alekseyeva deserves
the gratitude of all people of good will and selection as this year’s winner of
the Nobel Peace Prize.
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