Helsinki Committee

The Helsinki Committees for Human Rights exist in many European countries (the OSCE region) 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 based in Vienna.

The Helsinki Committees began as Helsinki Watch groups. The first one was founded in the Soviet Union in 1976, the second in 1977 in Czechoslovakia, the third in 1979 in Poland, etc.

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 has always been 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.

• Switzerland: Swiss Helsinki Committee for democracy, Rule of law and Human Rights

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