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.
8-667: Greek Helsinki Monitor is a human rights organization in Greece, founded as part of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights . In 2021, GHM was one of a group of organizations that sued Frontex at the European Court of Justice over its alleged involvement in pushbacks in Greece . In December 2022, the Public Prosecutor's Office of Kos, using information given to them by
16-600: The Greek Coast Guard , pressed felony charges against Panagiotis Dimitras, director of the Greek Helsinki Monitor for "setting up a criminal organization in order to receive data of third-country citizens, who attempt to enter Greece illegally, in order to facilitate their illegal entry and stay, by sending to the authorities their full details and their exact location in the country, in order to subject them to asylum procedures". This criminalisation
24-578: 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. After its closure, IHF's complete archives were transferred to the Blinken Open Society Archives which acts as the organisation's official repository. This human rights -related article
32-554: 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
40-559: 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. 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. An IHR accountant was sentenced to three years for embezzling $ 1.8 million from
48-710: 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. 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,
56-481: 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
64-865: Was widely condemned, inter alia in December 2022 by the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders and the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants, in January 2023 by the Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights, and in February 2024 by the European Parliament. International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights It was founded in 1982, inspired in part by an appeal from Dr. Andrei Sakharov for
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