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On August 1st, a meeting for the 35th anniversary of the Helsinki Act as a most important international document, took place in the Saharov Center.
The Helsinki act had been adopted in 1975 and cleared the way for The Council of Security and Cooperation in Europe which was later transformed into the OSCE. The actions that had been taken to improve the civil control of the states in compliance with international obligations were the first step to the creation of the International Helsinki Movement. On May 12th, 1976, the Moscow Group for promoting the implementation of the Helsinki agreements was founded by Y. F. Orlov and became the first group in the whole range of Helsinki Groups Worldwide.
In the meeting, which was organized by Youth Human Rights Movement (YHRM), took part not only representatives of different civil, human rights defense and youth organizations but also groups from 6 different countries. Ludmila Alexeeva, one of the founders and current Head of MHG, told young activists about the history of the Helsinki Movement, the foundation of MHG, about principals and the ideology of the Human Rights protection movement.
The second part of the discussion was about the current situation in the field of Human Rights protection within the OSCE region. The OSCE still is the most important organization promoting complex security policies (including questions of the human dimension) within the whole area of the so-called “extralarge Europe” (plus Central Asia, Belorussia, the USA and Canada). It provides important mechanisms for the political control of international obligations and the sphere of Human Rights.
“It is absolutely clear that now, after the 35th anniversary of the Helsinki Act, additional efforts from the side of civil society for the strengthening of the OSCE are needed. This will be necessary, if we don’t want the tone to be set by representatives of the parliaments, by authoritarian states and advocates with a wrong understanding of “state interests”-, as it was stated by one of the organizers of the meeting, the member of the Administrative Council of YHRM, Dmitriy Makarov. “In our opinion, this will only be possible through strengthening the human dimension of security which was the most important one for the Helsinki Movement, which has changed the structure of all international organizations over the time. Now there is the same situation like 30-35 years ago, and we need to unite efforts of all civil organizations for the consolidation of the OSCE and its human dimension”.