Death of the oldest human rights activist in Russia, Liudmila Alexeeva | World

The death of this former Soviet dissident "represents a huge loss for the entire human rights movement in Russia," said council chairman Mikhail Fedotov, quoted in a statement.

Alexeeva, president of the Moscow-Helsinki group, died in a hospital in the capital. "It was not the first time that he was in this hospital, his doctors had saved him in the past, but there are situations where doctors can not do anything," he said. he explained.

"For all those who have appreciated, appreciated and appreciated democracy, Liudmila Mikhailovna (Alexeeva) has always been and will remain the symbol of honesty and an uncompromising struggle to be human rights, "Russian human rights activist Tatiana Moskalkova was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying.

In 1976 she was one of the founders of the Helsinki group in Moscow. The members of this militant group have for years been targets of harbadment, arrest and exile.

Alexeeva had to exile, continuing to defend Soviet opponents and writing a dissent story that remains a reference today. She was able to return to Russia only in 1993 after the fall of the USSR.

In recent years, Alexeeva was present in all fights, denunciations of death in the prison of the jurist Sergei Magnitsky until the judgment of the former oligarch and Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky.