![]() Helsinki Committee for Human Rights logo | |
Predecessor | International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights |
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Legal status | Non-governmental organization |
Focus | Human rights |
Region served | Europe, Central Asia, North America |
Methods | Advocacy |
Helsinki Committees for Human Rights exist in many European countries (and in the wider OSCE region) as volunteer, non-profit organizations devoted to the protection of human rights. It was presumably named after the Helsinki Accords. It was formerly organized into the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF), based in Vienna.
The Helsinki Committees began as Helsinki Watch groups. The first one was founded in Moscow in May 1976, the second in Kyiv in November 1976, the third in November 1976 in Lithuania, then in 1977 in Czechoslovakia, Georgia and Armenia, the last in 1979 in Poland. In 1982, representatives of several of these committees held an International Citizens Helsinki Watch Conference and founded the IHF.
In 1992, a British Helsinki Human Rights Group was established in the UK, but this group was always completely independent of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights. The UK's official representative in the IHF is the British Helsinki Subcommittee of the Parliamentary Human Rights Group, established in 1976.