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. The various backgrounds of the founders were intended to serve a wide range interests. The group did not want to become yet another Catholic or nationalistic dissident group; instead it strove to work on fundamental and universal human rights that would attract
intelligentsia, city residents, non-Lithuanians, and others. The group did not limit its reports to Lithuania or Lithuanians; for example, it reported on arrests of three
Estonians (Mart Nikius, Erik Udam, and
Enn Tarto), discrimination of 49
Volga German families living in
Radviliškis, and persecution of a Russian
Pentecostal living in
Vilnius. The group produced not only reports concerning specific individuals, but also reports on broader issue. In 1977, the group produced reports on situation of the former political prisoners, focusing on prohibition to return to Lithuania even after their prison term ended, and the Catholic church. It also sent a report to the Follow-up Meeting of the
Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe in
Belgrade (4 October 1977 – 8 March 1978). In January 1979,
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe nominated Helsinki Groups of the Soviet Union, including the Lithuanian group, for the
Nobel Peace Prize. Petkus hoped to establish a broader Baltic organization that would represent all three
Baltic states, but these plans were abandoned after his arrest in August 1977. After the arrest of Petkus, there was a lull in the group's activity. It became more active again in early 1979 and published further documents primarily protesting arrests of various dissidents, including
Antanas Terleckas, and statements critical of the
Czechoslovak government and the
Soviet–Afghan War. However, arrests of four other members effectively discontinued the activities of the Lithuanian Helsinki Group. The group was reestablished in 1988 when
glasnost and
perestroika policies allowed freer political expressions. On November 20, 1988, the group admitted three new members
Balys Gajauskas,
Kazimieras Kryževičius, and
Nijolė Sadūnaitė. The group joined the
independence movement and published many reports and documents (some 100 documents in 1991 alone). The documents were collected and published in two volumes by the
Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania in 1999 () and by the
Lithuanian Human Rights Association in 2006 (). Many members of the group, including Viktoras Petkus, joined the Lithuanian Human Rights Association, the first official human rights organization established in 1989. The Helsinki Group continues as an official group; in March 2014, it became co-founder of the Lithuanian Human Rights Coordination Centre (). ==Membership==