The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is the world's largest regional security-oriented intergovernmental organization with observer status at the United Nations. Its mandate includes issues such as arms control, promotion of human rights, freedom of the press, and free and fair elections. It employs around 3,460 people, mostly in its field operations but also in its secretariat in Vienna, Austria, and its institutions.
Zviad Konstantines dze Gamsakhurdia was a Georgian politician, dissident, scholar, and writer who became the first democratically elected President of Georgia in the post-Soviet era. Gamsakhurdia is the only Georgian President to have died while formally in office.
Détente is the relaxation of strained relations, especially political, by verbal communication. The term, in diplomacy, originates from around 1912 when France and Germany tried unsuccessfully to reduce tensions.
Human rights in Uzbekistan have been described as "abysmal" by Human Rights Watch, and the country has received heavy criticism from the UK and the US for alleged arbitrary arrests, religious persecution and torture employed by the government on a regional and national level.
The Helsinki Committees for Human Rights exist in many European countries as volunteer, non-profit organizations devoted to human rights and presumably named after the Helsinki Accords. Formerly organized into the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) based in Vienna.
The British Helsinki Human Rights Group (BHHRG) was an Oxford-based non-governmental organization which claimed to monitor human rights in the 56 participating States of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Despite its name, the organisation was not affiliated to the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights. BHHRG was critical of what it characterized as Western interference in imposing democracy, and claimed to support the right of political independence from the west of a number of Communist and post-Communist regimes, as well as of a number of African dictators.
The International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) was a self-governing group of non-governmental organizations that acted to protect human rights throughout Europe, North America and Central Asia. A specific primary goal was to monitor compliance with the human rights provisions of the Helsinki Final Act and its follow-up documents.
The 2001 About-Picard law [abu pika:r], is a controversial piece of French legislation, which broadly speaking, makes it possible to act against organisations when such organisations have become involved in certain crimes. The law is targeted at sects and movements deemed cultic that "undermine human rights and fundamental freedoms", as well as "mental manipulation". The law has caused controversy internationally, with some commentators alleging that it infringes on religious freedom while proponents contend that it reinforces religious freedom.
Soviet dissidents were people who disagreed with certain features of Soviet ideology or with its entirety and who were willing to speak out against them. The term dissident was used in the Soviet Union in the period from the mid-1960s until the fall of communism. It was used to refer to small groups of marginalized intellectuals whose challenges, from modest to radical to the Soviet regime, met protection and encouragement from correspondents and typically criminal prosecution or other forms of silencing by the authorities. Following the etymology of the term, a dissident is considered to "sit apart" from the regime. As dissenters began self-identifying as dissidents, the term came to refer to an individual whose non-conformism was perceived to be for the good of a society. The most influential subset of the dissidents is known as the Soviet human rights movement.
Human rights in Armenia tend to be better than those in most former Soviet republics and have drawn closer to acceptable standards, especially economically. Still, there are several considerable problems.
The Moscow Helsinki Group is today one of Russia's leading human rights organisations. It was originally set up in 1976 to monitor Soviet compliance with the Helsinki Accords and to report to the West on Soviet human rights abuses. It was forced out of existence in the early 1980s, but revived in 1989 and continues to operate in Russia as of 2021.
The Church of Scientology Moscow v Russia [2007] ECHR 258 is a European Court of Human Rights case, concerning Article 11 of the Convention. In the case the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg condemned Moscow City Government's refusal to consider the Church of Scientology of Moscow for registration as a religious organisation, and as a result found that Russia had violated the rights of the Church of Scientology under Articles 11 when "read in the light of Article 9". Specifically, the Court determined that, in denying consideration of registration to the Church of Scientology of Moscow, the Moscow authorities "did not act in good faith and neglected their duty of neutrality and impartiality vis-à-vis the applicant's religious community". The Court also awarded the Church €10,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage and €15,000 for costs and expenses.
Freedom of assembly in the Russian Federation is granted by Art. 31 of the Constitution adopted in 1993. Citizens of the Russian Federation shall have the right to gather peacefully, without weapons, and to hold meetings, rallies, demonstrations, marches and pickets. According to a Russian law introduced in 2014, a fine or detention of up to 15 days may be given for holding a demonstration without the permission of authorities and prison sentences of up to five years may be given for three breaches. Single-person pickets have resulted in fines and a three-year prison sentence.
The Croatian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights is an organisation founded to protect and promote human rights in Croatia. It was founded on 31 March 1993, initially as a branch of the International Helsinki Federation and latterly as a member organisation of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights. Since 14 April 2003, the organization has functioned as a local NGO under Croatian law and is supported by independent academics, journalists and professionals dedicated to protecting and promoting human rights in the country.
International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR) is an international non-governmental human rights organization with its seat in Brussels, Belgium. It was established in the spring of 2008. It is a non-profit organization.
The Lithuanian Helsinki Group was a dissident organization active in the Lithuanian SSR, one of the republics of the Soviet Union, in 1975–83. Established to monitor the implementation of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, better known as Helsinki Accords, it was the first human rights organization in Lithuania. The group published over 30 documents that exposed religious repressions, limitations on freedom of movement, political abuse of psychiatry, discrimination of minorities, persecution of human right activists, and other violations of human rights in the Soviet Union. Most of the documents reached the West and were published by other human rights groups. Members of the group were persecuted by the Soviet authorities. Its activities diminished after it lost members due to deaths, emigration, or imprisonment, though it was never formally disbanded. Some of the group's functions were taken over by the Catholic Committee for the Defense of the Rights of Believers, founded by five priests in 1978. Upon his release from prison, Viktoras Petkus reestablished the Lithuanian Helsinki Group in 1988.
In the 1980s a human rights movement began to emerge in the USSR. Those actively involved did not share a single set of beliefs. Many wanted a variety of civil rights — freedom of expression, of religious belief, of national self-determination. To some it was crucial to provide a truthful record of what was happening in the country, not the heavily censored version provided in official media outlets. Others still were "reform Communists" who thought it possible to change the Soviet system for the better.
Antonio Stango is an Italian political scientist, an expert of human rights at international level, a writer and editor. After leading several non-governmental organizations, he is currently the President of the Italian Federation for Human Rights.
Malva Noyivna Landa was a Ukrainian-born Soviet-Russian dissident, publicist, and geologist. She was the author of multiple articles about human rights, the translator of number of humanitarian essays from English to Russian, and a veteran of the human rights movement in the Soviet Union, being a member of the Moscow Helsinki Group from its founding in 1976. She received the Officer of the Order of the Cross of Vytis.
