Fefelov (Fefelov) Valery Andreevich

Genus. 06/14/1949 in Yuryev-Polsky. While working as an electrician, in 1966 he received an industrial injury (he fell from a power line support and broke his spine), after which he remained disabled for the rest of his life, and could only move around in a wheelchair.
In May 1978 together with Yuri Kiselev (Moscow) and Faizulla Khusainov (Chistopol), he created the Initiative Group for the Protection of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in the USSR. The group set itself the following tasks:
Collection and dissemination of information about the situation of disabled people in the USSR.
Making petitions to the component bodies of the USSR to improve social security for people with disabilities (this included increasing pensions in proportion to rising prices, producing or purchasing abroad various mechanisms to make life easier for people with disabilities, designing special neighborhoods for people with disabilities and their families, taking into account special needs, improving the situation in homes disabled people - separating young people from old people and providing them with decent work; developing disabled sports, which were absent in the USSR, etc.).
In case of refusal to satisfy these requests, turn to the international community for help.
Establishing contacts with international organizations for disabled people.
The group called its main goal the creation of an All-Union Society of Disabled People. For this purpose, a questionnaire was distributed among disabled people. The publication of a newsletter was also started (a total of 14 issues were published), in which the group’s documents and various materials on the situation of people with disabilities were published. One of the issues of the newsletter was sent to the social security authorities with a request to bring its contents to the attention of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.
On October 25, 1978, members of the group held a press conference in Moscow at which they announced their existence to foreign correspondents.
The activities of the Initiative Group were considered anti-Soviet by the authorities. Like other members of the Initiative Group, Fefelov was subjected to pressure from the authorities, repeated searches and surveillance, persecution in the Soviet press, and received “warnings”; pressure was also put on his wife and parents.
In May 1982, a criminal case was opened against Fefelov under the article “resistance to authorities.” Under threat of arrest, Fefelov agreed to the KGB's demand to go abroad and in October 1982 he went to Germany, where in 1983 he and his family received political asylum. Settled in Frankfurt am Main. While working at the International Society of Human Rights, he continued to work on the problem of protecting the rights of people with disabilities in the USSR. Author of the book “There are no disabled people in the USSR!”, published in Russian (London, Overseas Publications Interchange Ltd., 1986), English and Dutch (Amsterdam, Vladimir Bukovsky Committee). In 1992 he visited Russia for the first time.
Died in Frankfurt am Main on December 3, 2008.