Borshchyov was born in , ,
Tambov Oblast on 1 December 1943. He graduated from the
Faculty of Journalism at
Moscow State University. He started actively protesting against Soviet policy in 1973, and was inspired to do so due to the prosecution of
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. He became actively involved in human rights work after he met
Andrei Sakharov in 1975; Borshchyov's work led to him being banned from practicing journalism. During the 1980s, his actions as a
dissident grew, he was harassed and beaten by the authorities and his work was labeled as "anti-Soviet propaganda" by the KGB. According to the
Moscow Helsinki Group, he helped evacuate women and children from combat areas during the
First Chechen War. In 1995, Borshchyov volunteered to take the place of a hostage during the
Budyonnovsk hostage crisis. In 2009, he was elected to serve as head of the Public Oversight Commission (POC). In this capacity, he led the team that used forensic evidence to prove that
Sergei Magnitsky was murdered while in police custody, and did not die, as officially claimed, by a heart attack. Following the murder of Magnitsky, Borshchyov also underlined that a series of articles about the murder published in the
New York Times ameliorated the situation and hoped the interest of the press might help bring the perpetrators to justice. Borshchyov spoke out against growing human rights abuses in Russia, stating in 2012 that Russia had entered "a new era of
Stalin-like repressions". In 2017, he was awarded the
Magnitsky Human Rights Award for Outstanding Human Rights Activist. == References ==