OBITUARY: Henrikh Altunian, human rights activist (09/04/05)

OBITUARY

Henrikh Altunian, human rights activist

PARSIPPANY, N.J. - Henrikh Altunian, veteran human rights activist in Ukraine, died in a Jerusalem clinic on June 30. He was 72.

Mr. Altunian, who was born in Tbilisi, Georgia, moved with his family to Kharkiv, Ukraine in 1951. He was a radio technology engineer by training and was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

In 1964 at a party meeting he declared his mistrust of the new Soviet leadership. He was expelled from the party in 1968 because of his friendship with known dissidents, such as Petro Grigorenko, and his refusal to condemn Andrei Sakharov.

In 1969 he became a founding member of the Initiative Group for Human Rights in the USSR. He served a sentence for "slander of the Soviet state" in 1969-1972, and for "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda" in the 1980s.

In 1981 he was one of the signatories of a letter to President Ronald Reagan that was written by 10 Soviet political prisoners, in which they asked for the U.S. president's help in forming an international commission to inspect Soviet labor camps.

After his release in 1987 Mr. Altunian became active once again in citizens' groups, most notably the Kharkiv chapter of the Memorial Society and the National Rukh of Ukraine. He worked also on the magazine Glasnost.

In 1990-1994 he was a national deputy of Ukraine, in which capacity he participated actively in the declaration of Ukraine's independence on August 24, 1991.

Most recently he was vice-chair of Kharkiv's Memorial Society and was a participant of the Orange Revolution, often addressing the crowds gathered on Independence Square.

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