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PACE President offers condolences to passing of Russian human rights activist

Liliane Maury-Pasquier stressed that Lyudmila Alekseeva has inspired generations of activists in Russia and abroad

TASS, December 8. Liliane Maury-Pasquier, the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), paid tribute to Lyudmila Alekseeva, who died in Moscow on Saturday.

"Lyudmila Alexeeva moved us during her speech to the Assembly three years ago. Her strong message had come to us with the same strength that has inspired generations of activists in Russia and abroad," Pasquier said in a statement on the PACE website.

Soviet dissident and Russian human rights activist Lyudmila Alekseeva, a member of the Russian Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights and the chairwoman of the Moscow Helsinki Group, died aged 91 in Moscow on Saturday.

Alekseeva joined the human rights movement in 1966. In 1977, she was forced to emigrate from the Soviet Union. The dissident settled in the United States and authored some research into the history of dissident movement in the Soviet Union. Alekseeva returned to Russia in 1993 and three years later headed the oldest human rights organization - the Moscow Helsinki Group. In 2002, she joined the Russian Presidential Commission for Human Rights, which was transformed into the Russian Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights in 2004.

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