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English Language Page In the international practice this concept covers not only regular check ups of defined processes but to check up on and also to disclose the results with the goal of stimulating society at large and the authorities to eliminate certain deficiencies. The importance of human rights monitoring is obvious. Human rights organizations in all countries are engaged, even at an early stage of their activities, in monitoring of human rights. In the Russian human rights movement the first application for monitoring was done in May 1976 by the Public Group for the Assistance to the Implementation of Helsinki Accords in the USSR (Moscow Helsinki Group). In the declaration of creation, the Group stated that its main purpose was to inform the society and the Heads of States and Governments that signed the Helsinki Accords on violations of its humanitarian articles by the USSR in order to stop these violations. In the 195 documents that were issued by the Moscow Helsinki Group between 1976 and 1982, the following violations of the humanitarian articles of the Helsinki Accords were registered. Religious parents had their children taken away; psychiatric repressions; impedes for emigration for the purpose of family reunification; inhuman treatment of “prisoners of conscience”; and many other violations were registered. The violations by the Soviet government of the humanitarian articles of the Helsinki Accords were disclosed, which mobilized societies and the governments of democratic countries – signatories to the Helsinki Accords, to demand from the Soviet government a strict observance of all articles of the Helsinki Agreements, including the humanitarian ones. In the first years of its recreation in 1989 the MHG did not engage in monitoring projects and was developing other activities. Of course, monitoring was always on the list of priorities of the human rights movement in Russia. In the first half of the 1990s a considerable number of thematic local investigations on the observance of human rights were conducted, but there were no monitorings of the whole range of human rights. Systematic monitoring on the entire territory of the Russian Federation remains, even up to the present, a very difficult task. MHG again turned to the check up on the human rights situation in Russia in 1997. The Group moved ahead when it had arranged interaction with the first regional organizations. The MHG proposed its partners to conduct a joint monitoring of human rights. This activity became a good base for the development of ties between the MHG and regional human rights organizations, besides this task in it self was of a great importance to the Russian human rights movement. In Russia, every region has about the same surface as the average European state and the differences between these regions on several parameters, including the observance of human rights are sometimes bigger than between European countries. It is only collaborative work by the human rights activists in the centre and in the regions that is able to give a maximally accurate and objective portrayal of the human rights situation in the country. The MHG has taken it on itself to solve this problem and has posed itself the goal of conducting a monitoring on the entire territory of the Russian Federation. At present the MHG has accomplished this task, which has taken four years of intensive work and the active involvement of human rights activists in the regions of the Russian Federation; as well as the support of the Russian human rights community. The Chronicle of the Creation of the All-Russian Network of Human-Rights Organizations and of Conducting an All-Russian Human Rights Monitoring. • 1997.The beginning of a pilot monitoring project in five regions of the Russian Federation. • 1998. The Moscow Helsinki Group begins the realization of a three-year project “The Monitoring of Human Rights in Russia”. In the first year monitoring was conducted in 30 regions of the Russian Federation. On the basis of the materials that were collected, a first report “On the Human Rights Situation in the Russian Federation” is published. • 1999. Human-rights organizations from 30 other regions of the Russian Federation join the monitoring, which makes monitoring a reality in two-thirds of all the territorial subjects of the Russian Federation. • 2000. The network of human-rights organizations grows even more, when representatives of the remaining 29 regions of the Russian Federation join it. For the first time in the history of the Russian human-rights movement the monitoring of the human rights situation was conducted in the entire territory of the Russian Federation. All-Russian monitoring in the field of human rights became possible thanks to the model that was proposed by the Moscow Helsinki Group. The check up of the human rights situation takes place by joint efforts of the Moscow and regional human rights organizations. The Moscow organization has been given the responsibility of coordinator, of the developer of a single methodological monitoring base and the compiler of the All-Russian report on the human rights situation. The local organizations conduct monitoring in the regions and on the basis of material received compile regional reports on the local human rights situation. By 2001 a permanent network of human rights organizations with extensive experience in conducting monitoring was formed. A procedure was established wherein the regional human rights organizations represent reports on the human rights situation in their regions based on which the Moscow Helsinki Group annually (since 1999) produces a report “On the human rights situation in the Russian Federation”. Starting from 1999 the MHG, apart from monitoring that covers the entire range of human rights, began conducting thematic investigations on particular groups of human rights. The All-Russian report and reports on the situation of human rights in separate regions are distributed through the local, All-Russian and foreign media; the reports are circulated in the local and federal authorities and also in states that are partners of Russia in the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe [OSCE] and the Council of Europe. Furthermore, the reports are send to libraries, scientific institutions, educational institutes and public organizations, that have an interest in the human rights situation. Moscow Helsinki Group Projects on Monitoring • An investigation into the status of women’s rights in Central and Eastern Europe and the Newly Independent States • Monitoring of human rights in Russia • Monitoring of the situation on discrimination of women in Russia • Prevention of torture: support of the rehabilitation of torture victims • Human Rights Monitoring Network in the Russian Federation • System of civil control of the parliamentary elections in 1999 • Assistance to independent monitoring of human rights: Russia Back |
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