Helsinki Watch
Helsinki Watch (1978),a division of the U.S.‐based nongovernmental organization Human Rights Watch, was founded to monitor and promote the human rights provisions of the 1975 Helsinki Accords. Those accords focused primarily on the security and economic dimensions of East–West Cold War relations, confirming, among other things, the Soviet Union's post–World War II borders. But the agreements also made economic and security cooperation dependent on the human rights practices of signatory countries. Activists throughout the Eastern bloc seized on these provisions to demand greater political freedoms, and established local committees to fight for government compliance. The groups were harshly repressed by incumbent Communist regimes. The first arrests of human rights monitors were carried out by Soviet authorities in early 1977. Helsinki Watch was organized to campaign internationally on behalf of the imprisoned monitors in the Soviet Union...
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