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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.
It was founded in 1982, inspired in part by an appeal from Dr. Andrei Sakharov for the creation of a "unified international committee to defend all Helsinki Watch Group members", and also to co-ordinate their work. The IHF was founded in response, both to provide an organization which the various independent Helsinki committees could use to support each other, as well as provide an international body to strengthen their work.
The original members were the independent Helsinki committees of Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United States; an international secretariat was established in Vienna. The secretariat supported and provided liaison member Helsinki committees and associated human rights groups, and represented them at the international political level. At the time IHF was dissolved, it had forty-six member committees. [1] [2]
The IHF also had direct links with individuals and groups supporting human rights in countries where no Helsinki committees exist. In addition to gathering and analyzing information on human rights conditions in OSCE countries, the IHF acted as a clearing house for this information, disseminating it to governments, inter-governmental organizations, the press and the public at large.
Karl zu Schwarzenberg served as chairman of the federation from 1984 to 1991. The International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights was awarded the European Human Rights Prize in 1989, jointly with Lech Wałęsa.
In January 2008, an Austrian court convicted the IHF's former financial manager, the Austrian Rainer Tannenberger, of the embezzlement of €1.2 million. Tannenberger was sentenced to three years in prison, with two of them suspended. [3] The IHF's resulting insolvency had driven it to file for bankruptcy in Austria, its country of registration, and to be dissolved on 27 November 2007. [4] An IHR accountant was sentenced to three years for embezzling $1.8 million from the Helsinki Federation for Human Rights to support his mistress. He channeled money from human rights projects to his bank account, and used the organization's ATM card for personal purposes which went unnoticed for six years. [5]
After its closure, IHF's complete archives were transferred to the Blinken Open Society Archives which acts as the organisation's official repository. [6]
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is a regional security-oriented intergovernmental organization comprising member states in Europe, North America, and Asia. Its mandate includes issues such as arms control, the 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. It has observer status at the United Nations.
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. Amnesty International stated that freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly continue to be restricted, and that relations between gay men are illegal.
Helsinki Committees for Human Rights exist in many European countries 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 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 Chinese Institute of Certified Public Accountants or CICPA is a professional accounting organization based in Beijing with oversight responsibility for accountants in China.
Human rights in Armenia tend to be better than those in most former Soviet republics and have drawn closer to acceptable standards, especially economically. In October 2023, Armenia ratified the Rome statute, whereby Armenia will become a full member of the International Criminal Court.
The Moscow Helsinki Group was 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 had been forced out of existence in the early 1980s, but was revived in 1989 and continued to operate in Russia.
Human rights in Austria are generally respected by the government; however, there were problems in some areas. There were some reports of police abuse and use of unjustified force against prisoners. Antisemitic incidents, including physical attacks, name-calling, property damage, and threatening letters, telephone calls, and Internet postings occurred during the year. There was some governmental and societal discrimination against fathers, Muslims and members of unrecognized religious groups, particularly those considered "sects". There were incidents of neo-Nazi activity, rightwing extremism, and xenophobia. Trafficking in women and children for prostitution and labor also remained a problem.
Blinken Open Society Archives is an archival repository and laboratory that aims to explore new ways of assessing, contextualizing, presenting, and making use of archival documents both in a professional and a consciously activist way. It was founded by George Soros in 1995, and opened in 1996 as a department of the Central European University. Originally called simply Open Society Archives (OSA), in 2015 it was renamed Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives after receiving a major donation from the couple.
Aaron Anthony Rhodes is an international human rights activist and writer. He is a senior fellow at Common Sense Society and President of the Forum for Religious Freedom-Europe, an independent nongovernmental organization. Rhodes served as Executive Director of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) between 1993 and 2007, during which period the IHF was engaged inter alia in human rights challenges in the Balkans, in Chechnya, and in Central Asia, and the organization expanded significantly. He has been active in civil society campaigns vis a vis the Human Dimension of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Council of Europe, the European Union and the United Nations. He is based in Hamburg, Germany.
The Helsinki Committee for Human Rights of the Republic of North Macedonia, also known as the Macedonian Helsinki Committee (MHC), is a non-governmental organization that promotes human rights and monitors human rights violations in the North Macedonia in accordance with the Helsinki Accords.
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.
Marek Antoni Nowicki is a human rights lawyer. He has been a member of the Human Rights Advisory Panel of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo since January 2007, and from January 2008 became its president. Nowicki was a United Nations-appointed International Ombudsman in Kosovo from July 2000 to December 2005. He was also a member of the European Commission of Human Rights in Strasbourg from March 1993 until 31 October 1999. From December 1997 to November 1998, he served as vice-president of the Second Chamber of this commission.
The International Hospital Federation (IHF) is an independent, not-for-profit, non-governmental organization based in Bernex, Switzerland. The IHF is a global association for healthcare management that assists healthcare organizations and facilities in improving their performance by implementing initiatives that enhance their responsiveness, efficiency, accessibility, and quality in meeting the healthcare requirements of people all over the world. The IHF also provides a platform for the global healthcare community to share knowledge, ideas, and experiences, as well as identify international partnerships and collaboration opportunities. Furthermore, the Federation encourages the creation of new national hospital organizations in order to include as many countries as possible in their activities, particularly emerging and developing nations, and to grow their network.
The Bulgarian Helsinki Committee is an independent non-governmental organization for human rights founded on July 14, 1992 in Sofia, Bulgaria. Its main objectives are protection and promotion of human rights in Bulgaria. With more than 30 associates, the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee is the largest human rights watchdog in the country.
Leyla Islam qizi Yunusova, better known as Leyla Yunus, is an Azerbaijani human rights activist who serves as the director of Institute of Peace and Democracy, a human rights organisation. She is particularly known for her work helping citizens affected by forced evictions in Baku, on whose behalf she organized several small protests. In July 2014, the Azerbaijani authorities jailed Yunus under allegations of fraud and tax evasion, which are charges widely regarded as dubious. After being sentenced to 8.5 years in jail on 13 August 2015, Leyla Yunus was released on grounds of her deteriorating health on 9 December 2015, with a court converting her sentence into a suspended one.
The Czech Helsinki Committee is a non-governmental non-profit organization for human rights. It has operated in Czechoslovakia since 1988 and in the Czech Republic since 1993. It was founded as one of the first "Helsinki" organizations outside of the USSR, and is the first formalized human rights NGO in the country.
Viktoras Petkus was a Lithuanian political activist and Soviet dissident. He was a founding member of the Lithuanian Helsinki Group in 1976 which set out to document violations of human rights in the Soviet Union. For various anti-Soviet activities, Petkus was imprisoned three times in various prisons and Gulag camps by the Soviet authorities.
Wheelchair handball is handball played by people with varying physical disabilities that disqualify them from playing an able-bodied sport. These include spina bifida, birth defects, cerebral palsy, paralysis due to accident, amputations, and many other disabilities. The IHF Wheelchair Handball World Championship (IHF) is the governing body for this sport. It is recognized by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) as the sole competent authority in wheelchair handball worldwide.
Armenia–OSCE relations began when Armenia joined the OSCE's predecessor, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), on 30 January 1992. The CSCE transformed into the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) shortly afterwards in 1995.
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