Index on Censorship, inspired by Soviet dissidents, marks 50 years of fighting for free speech

The brave protests of 1968 spawned an organisation that is still giving voice to Putin's critics today

In August 1968, as Soviet tanks rolled into Prague, a small group of students and writers in Moscow organised a protest in solidarity with the people of Czechoslovakia. The poet Natalya Gorbanevskaya and seven other dissidents sat down in Moscow's Red Square and unfurled banners with slogans that have a chilling resonance today: We are Losing Our Friends"; Shame on Occupiers"; For Your Freedom and Ours"; and Long Live a Free and Independent Czechoslovakia".

This extraordinary act of courage was met with customary brutality. The activists were arrested and most served long sentences in penal colonies. Gorbanevskaya was sent to a psychiatric hospital.