The Moscow Public Group to Promote Observance of the Helsinki Accords in the USSR (better known as the Moscow Helsinki Group) announced its formation at a press conference for Western journalists on May 12, 1976. The first statement of the Moscow Helsinki Group publicized the names and addresses of the founding members: Professor Yuri Orlov, Group leader; and founding members Lyudmila Alekseeva, Elena Bonner, Aleksandr Ginzburg, Petro Grigorenko, Malva Landa, Anatoly Marchenko, Vitaly Rubin and Anatoly Shcharansky. (Later, ten other human rights activists joined the Moscow Helsinki Group: Sofya Kalistratova, Ivan Kovalev, Naum Meiman, Yuri Mnyukh, Viktor Nekipelov, Tatiana Osipova, Feliks Serebrov, Vladimir Slepak, Leonard Ternovsky and Yuri Yarym-Agaev.) Believing that human needs and open information are directly related to international security, the Group seeks to inform the CSCE states and public opinion about violations in the USSR of the humanitarian provisions of the Final Act. The Moscow Helsinki Group hopes that the information it provides will be considered at those international meetings (the Belgrade Conference, the Madrid Conference and similar future meetings) which are envisioned in the Final Act, under the section "Followup to the Conference," to examine the fulfillment of obligations under the Helsinki Accords. The Group called itself the Group to Promote the observance of the Helsinki Accords to stress its loyalty to the authorities and its desire to cooperate if they revealed a conscientious attitude towards their Helsinki human rights obligations. The Group members called on other CSCE signatories to create similar citizens groups, since violations of the Final Act human rights provisions are possible in any country.

This report and its findings and recommendations are drawn from material compiled during the Commission's continuing study of Final Act implementation -- with special emphasis on the period since the last report in August 1977. Directed by law to give "particular regard" to the provisions of the Final Act section (Basket III) on Cooperation in Humanitarian and Other Fields, the Commission is: "Further authorized and directed to monitor and encourage the developoment of programs and activities of the United States government and private organizations with a view toward taking advantage of the provisions of the Final Act to expand East-West economic cooperation and a greater interchange of people and ideas between East and West." Guided by its mandate, the Commission has concentrated its attention in this report primarily on the compliance records of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies where, with rare exceptions, the level of implementation in many areas has remained appallingly low and, in some cases, has even regressed. By comparison, Western CSCE states generally have maintained relatively high standards of implementation in all areas of the Final Act and, in particular, in those areas such as human rights where the Eastern record has been most dismal. Therefore, in examining the impact of the Final Act -- actions reflecting compliance with or violations of its articles -- the Commission, in this report, has directed the bulk of its research to those nations whose records under the Helsinki Accords stand the greatest need for improvement. 

The Commission has three main purposes in preparing this report. First, it hopes to demonstrate the good faith of the U.S. in assessing its Helsinki implementation record in light of criticisms from other CSCE countries and domestic critics. Second, the Commission hopes to stimulate honest implementation evaluations by other CSCE states and thus to lay the groundwork for real progress prior to the next review meeting at Madrid in 1980. Finally, the Commission hopes to encourage improved compliance by the United States. Although the Commission agrees with President Carter that the U.S. record is very good, additional discussion and interaction between responsible government agencies and interested private organizations in a necessary prerequisite to greater progress. This report follows the structures of the Final Act by discussing, in order, each major section or "basket" of the Act. Basket I deals with questions relating to security in Europe which includes Human Rights; Basket II, economic and scientific cooperation; Basket III, cooperation in humanitarian and other fields. Click to read Part 2.

This volume is the third compilation of selected documents emerging from the Helsinki accord monitoring groups in the Soviet Union published by the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe. In a sampling of reports written between late 1976 and the summer of 1978, it is intended, as in the previous compilations, to illustrate the broad range of human rights concerns of the various monitoring groups whose common goal is the furthering of Final Act implementation in their own country. Efforts to promote CSCE compliance in the Soviet Union began in May of 1976 when 11 human rights activists in Moscow, led by Yuri Orlov, formed the first Public Group to Promote Observance of the Helsinki Agreements. Inspired by its example, other Helsinki groups were formed in Kiev, Vilnius, Yerevan and Tbilisi. Additional independent organizations with more narrowly defined focus, such as the Christian Committee for the Defense of Believers' Rights and the Working Commission on the Abuse of Psychiatry for Political Purposes, also emerged. Today, more than 50 group members, representing a broad spectrum of religious, ethnic and professional affiliations, are actively documenting human rights violations and engaged in promoting implementation of the Helsinki accord. While maintaining their individual identities, Soviet monitoring groups have frequently collaborated in their efforts to promote human rights. When the Lithuanian and Ukrainian groups were formed, for example, the Moscow group sponsored a joint news conference to publicize their creation. The Christian Committee, composed of four members of the Russian Orthodox Church, has written appeals on behalf of Adventists, Jews and Baptists. On occasion, two or more groups have issued joint declarations and other documents. Ordinary Soviet citizens, learning of the Helsinki groups via Western radio broadcasts, have traveled thousands of miles from remote regions in order to present documented evidence on human rights violations. Similarly, monitoring group members have journeyed great distances to conduct interviews and related research. Representatives of the Moscow group, for example, were sent to the northern Caucasus and to distant Nakhodka to visit Pentecostal communities desiring to emigrate. The representative documents of the Soviet Helsinki monitoring groups reproduced here address a wide range of human rights concerns: repressions of group members, violations of the rights of ethnic minorities, difficulties of emigration from the USSR, problems of religious believers and difficulties of current and former political prisoners. Economic concerns are also treated in several documents in the compilation. The Soviet monitoring groups carry out their work in an extremely repressive environment. Although 20 members of these organizations have been arrested and imprisoned, many new members have joined. Frequently, documents have been confiscated by the KGB. During a search of Orlov's apartment in Moscow, for example, material documenting persecution of parents advocating religious practices for their children was removed. In another case, Aleksandr Ginzburg's residence was searched and information on the health of seriously ill political prisoners was seized. The documents of the Soviet Helsinki monitors are truly a testament to their strength, courage and dedication. Their long-range goal -- the achievement of a humane society based on respect for law -- has yet to be realized. But already they have attained a moral victory in gaining the attention and respect of private and governmental groups throughout the world.

Between February 3, 1977 and June 1, 1978, twenty Soviet citizens active in the defense of human rights in five different Republics were arrested and imprisoned; two others, traveling abroad on Soviet passports, were stripped of their citizenship and denied the right to return to the USSR. All are members of the Public Groups to Promote Observance of the Helsinki Agreement in the USSR (the Soviet Helsinki Watch) or, in the case of two men, of its subsidiary Working Commission to Investi­gate the Abuse of Psychiatry for Political Purposes. The twenty-one men and one woman are being punished under a variety of different criminal charges. Their "crime," however, is identical: political dissent, ex­pressed in the non-violent, open effort to spur Soviet authorities to implement the human rights and humanitarian undertakings of the August 1975 Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (the Helsinki Accord.) The following study by the staff of the U. S. Commission on . Security and Cooperation in Europe examines the workings of Soviet law and criminal procedure as applied in these cases of political dissent. It discusses the guarantees of Soviet law, including international covenants ratified by the USSR, against arbitrary arrest and unfair trial and compares those to the practices used against the Helsinki Watchers. From the study it is evident that those guarantees -- both substantive and procedural -- have been repeatedly violated in the persecution and prosecution of the twenty-two human rights activists. The violations uncovered range from improper conduct of pre-arrest house searches through illegally prolonged pre-trial detention to unlawful denial of the rights of the defense at the trial. This pattern of official conduct toward free, but dissenting political expression is not new in the Soviet Union. In the treatment of the Soviet Helsinki Watch, however, it has been systematic and can be termed, without question, a gross and intentional violation of both the pledges in the Final Act and the safeguards promised by the Soviet Constitution, Criminal Codes and Codes of Criminal Procedure.

For some 5 months -- between October 4, 1977, and March 9, 1978 -- delegates of the 35 nations that signed the 1975 Helsinki accord met in Belgrade to determine how well the commitments set out in the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe had been kept. From their work, a new ingredient in East-West diplomacy emerged: The recognition of human rights as an integral aspect of detente. This is an important step on the road toward making Europe a place where human rights are universally respected in all countries, even though it carries no guarantees of speedy remedies for existing abuses. Although the Belgrade meeting examined new proposals, drafted a concluding document and scheduled the next review meeting, the main work of the Belgrade meeting was a line-by-line review of the Final Act. This complex document contained provisions for regulating the political relations between the states of Europe, for easing military tensions among them, and for improving trade, commerce and the flow of people and ideas between East and West. But the elements that caught the imaginations and enthusiasm of ordinary citizens were those guaranteeing human rights and fundamental freedoms and promoting policies among governments which would enhance their consistent observance. To understand the advance made at Belgrade and the limits on it, it is necessary to remember that CSCE decisions of the 35 countries can only be arrived at unanimously; each nation can reject any proposal or document by merely denying consensus. Moreover, the discussions at Belgrade were closed to the public and not transcribed, except for 2 weeks of formal, on-the-record speeches at the start and end of the meeting. Given these circumstances, Belgrade was more what therapists would call an "encounter session" than what jurists would regard as a tribunal. It was better suited for exchanges of views and arguments than for the issuance of formal findings or decrees. The United States and its allies-along with many of the neutral and nonalined countries-sought to make the review of Final Act implementation the touchstone of the Belgrade meeting. For the United States, the most urgent and important matters centered on questions of human rights, for it was here that performance was most glaringly deficient. The working sessions at Belgrade demonstrated the determination of Western and neutral signatories to record specific criticisms of Eastern implementation of the Helsinki Final Act.