Initiative group for the protection of human rights in the USSR (1969-1976)
The Initiative Group for the Protection of Human Rights in the USSR was the first openly operating independent civil association in the USSR.
IS became the first openly operating independent civic association in the Soviet Union. The group was founded in May 1969 in Moscow on the initiative of Petr Yakir and Viktor Krasin. In addition to them, the IG included: Muscovites Tatyana Velikanova, Natalya Gorbanevskaya, Sergey Kovalev, Alexander Lavut, Anatoly Levitin (Krasnov), Yuri Maltsev, Grigory Podyapolsky, Tatyana Khodorovich and Anatoly Yakobson, Vladimir Borisov from Leningrad, Henrikh Altunyan from Kharkov and Leonid Plyushch from Kiev, Mustafa, an activist of the Crimean Tatar movement from Uzbekistan Mustafa Dzhemilev.
The group was a team of authors who prepared the texts of open appeals addressed primarily to the UN and containing information about political persecution in the USSR. The activities of the IG continued until 1976, when its public function was actually transferred to the Moscow Helsinki Group. IS members were subjected to various kinds of repression; 11 out of 15 members were arrested and convicted, seven were forced to leave the country.
