The Committee on Human Rights in the USSR was founded in 1970 by Andrei Sakharov together with Andrei Tverdokhlebov and Valery Chalidze [1]. Andrei Sakharov was an eminent Soviet nuclear physicist who had publicly opposed the Soviet plans for atmospheric nuclear tests. In 1968, Sakharov had published "Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom," a plea for nuclear disarmament. As a result his professorship was revoked by Soviet authorities. He became a spokesman for the human rights in the Soviet Union.
The Committee opposed secret trials, capital punishment, and punitive psychiatry.[2]
Other prominent members of the committee included Aleksander Solzhenitsyn,[1] Yelena Bonner, Igor Shafarevich, [3] Pavel Litvinov [1]
The Committee formally sought for the membership of International League for Human Rights and in June 1971 the League adopted the Committee. It was the first time in history a Western Non Governmental Organization had linked itself with one in the Soviet Union.[1]