Russian and international human rights activists on Thursday condemned the dissolution of the Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG), Russia's oldest independent human rights organization after it was ordered to close by a Moscow court the day before. “The shutdown of the organization is the final nail in the coffin in the destruction of the human rights movement in Russia,” said Lev Ponomarev, an MHG member, and prominent human rights activist.  “The Helsinki Group was a symbol of the human rights movement and a beacon for regional human rights organizations in the country,” Ponomarev told The Moscow Times.  The MHG was set up in 1976 by physicist Yuri Orlov during a press conference held at the Moscow apartment of Nobel Peace Prize-winning physicist Andrei Sakharov.