Initiative Group for the Defense of Human Rights in the USSR

The Initiative or Action Group for the Defense of Human Rights in the USSR (Russian: Инициати́вная гру́ппа по защи́те прав челове́ка в СССР) was the first civic organization of the Soviet human rights movement. Founded in 1969 by 15 dissidents, the unsanctioned group functioned for over six years as a public platform for Soviet dissidents concerned with violations of human rights in the Soviet Union.^: 291

The main work of the group consisted in documenting abuses and preparing appeals. The letters focused on persecution of people for their convictions in the USSR, with particular attention being given to the use of punitive psychiatry and to political prisoners. Unusually for the dissident movement at the time, the appeals were directed to international organizations such as the UN Commission on Human Rights. The documents of the Initiative Group were circulated in samizdat, and published by the Western press, as well as being broadcast back into the USSR by radio stations such as Radio Liberty, the BBC World Service and Deutsche Welle.

Most of the members of the group were harassed and persecuted: they and family members lost their jobs, they were arrested and imprisoned, or encouraged to leave the Soviet Union altogether. By 1979, all the founding members of the Group were imprisoned, in internal exile or living abroad. The Initiative Group served as a precursor and model, nevertheless, to a variety of dissident organizations that took over many of its functions,^: 55, 76 among them Andrei Sakharov's Committee on Human Rights in the USSR, the Moscow Helsinki Group, and the Commission on the Abuse of Psychiatry.