Lithuanian Helsinki Group

The Lithuanian Helsinki Group (full name: the Public Group to Promote the Implementation of the Helsinki Accords in Lithuania; Lithuanian: Helsinkio susitarimų vykdymui remti Lietuvos visuomeninė grupė) was a dissident organization active in the Lithuanian SSR, one of the republics of the Soviet Union, in 1975–81. Established to monitor the implementation of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, better known as Helsinki Accords, it was the first human rights organization in Lithuania. The group published over 30 documents that exposed religious repressions, limitations on freedom of movement, political abuse of psychiatry, discrimination of minorities, persecution of human right activists, and other violations of human rights in the Soviet Union. Most of the documents reached the West and were published by other human rights groups. Members of the group were persecuted by the Soviet authorities. Its activities diminished after it lost members due to deaths, emigration, or imprisonment, though it was never formally disbanded. Some of the group's functions were taken over by the Catholic Committee for the Defense of the Rights of Believers, founded by five priests in 1978. Upon his release from prison, Viktoras Petkus reestablished the Lithuanian Helsinki Group in 1988.

Inspired by the Moscow Helsinki Group, the Lithuanian grouped was founded by five dissidents of different walks of life: Jesuit priest Karolis Garuckas, Jewish "refusenik" Eitanas Finkelšteinas, poet and deportee Ona Lukauskaitė-Poškienė, twice-imprisoned Catholic dissident Viktoras Petkus, and poet Tomas Venclova. The formation was formally announced in a press conference to foreign journalists from Reuters and Chicago Tribune on November 27 or December 1, 1976 in the apartment of Yuri Orlov (Natan Sharansky acted as an interpreter to English). The group did not have a more formal structure or a defined leader, though Petkus was its unofficial leader and driving force.