The Moscow Research Center for Human Rights (MRCHR) is "a union of independent non-governmental organizations whose work covers a wide range of human rights issues, provides central coordination for and development of the human rights movement in Russia."

The idea for the MRCHR grew out of a desire to collectively organize the human rights-related movements emerging from the loosely-structured community of informal social organizations which flowered during the last part of the Soviet period. A group of human rights activists, dissidents and former political prisoners acquired office space in which to work. The group soon found financial and moral support from the West, including the National Endowment for Democracy

National Endowment for Democracy

The National Endowment for Democracy, or NED, is a U.S. non-profit organization that was founded in 1983 to promote US-friendly democracy by providing cash grants funded primarily through an annual allocation from the U.S. Congress...

, Phare

Phare

The Phare programme is one of the three pre-accession instruments financed by the European Union to assist the applicant countries of Central and Eastern Europe in their preparations for joining the European Union....

, and various private foundations. After receiving a series of small grants, the Center gradually emerged as a focal point for human rights work in 1993.http://www.civilsoc.org/nisorgs/russwest/moscow/colleen/mrc.htm

Funding

The America's Development Foundation set up "An institutional partnership program in Russia with the Moscow Research Center for Human Rights (MCHR) provided the framework for strengthening the capacity of this coalition of Russian human rights NGOs, and significantly extending its network." http://www.adfusa.org/human.htm

"From 1993 – 1997, ADF carried out significant work with the Moscow Research Center for Human Rights (MRCHR), an umbrella organization of fifteen human rights organizations established in 1991 to jointly promote human rights and improve the rule of law throughout the Russian Federation. With generous backing from several private foundations and the Institutional Partnership Program of the USAID Bureau for Europe and the New Independent States, ADF helped MRCHR reach beyond Moscow to become a nationwide organization, with positive results for the cause of increasing human rights awareness and protection in Russia." http://www.adfusa.org/countries_russia.htm

Director of the Center is Alexei Smirnov, and its chairmen is Boris Altshuler

Boris Altshuler

Boris Altshuler is a professor of physics at Columbia University. His specialty is theoretical condensed matter physics....

 http://www.civilsoc.org/nisorgs/russwest/moscow/colleen/mrc.htm. Advisory Board of the Center includes Vyacheslav Bakhmin,
Elena Bonner, Valeriy Borschov, Sergei Kovalev

Sergei Kovalev

Sergei Kovalev is a Russian human rights activist and politician and a former Soviet dissident and political prisoner.- Early career and arrest :...

 and Anatoly Pristavkin

Anatoly Pristavkin

Anatoly Ignatovich Pristavkin was a Russian writer.His mother died when he was nine and his father died in World War II, leaving Anatoly orphan. Anatoly Pristavkin had to start working from the age of 14 onwards, and had various jobs. Nevertheless, he started a career as a writer in 1961 and...

http://www.civilsoc.org/nisorgs/russwest/moscow/colleen/mrc.htm