International Society for Human Rights

Description

International Society for Human Rights, ISHR, is an independent non-profit and non-governmental organization that advocates for people persecuted for peacefully claiming their human rights.

It began in 1972 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, as the Gesellschaft fur Menschenrechte, founded by former Soviet dissident Ivan Agrusov to support persecuted political dissidents and prisoners in the USSR and East Germany. It took the name International Society for Human Rights in 1981, after affiliates formed in Austria and Switzerland. Its headquarters remain in Bonn, Germany.

The organization has grown into a network of affiliated national sections, groups and committees in more than 30 countries across Africa, the Americas, Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East, each pursuing human rights work under the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It holds Consultative Status with the UN Economic and Social Council and Associated Status with the UN Department of Public Information, and has Participative Status with the Council of Europe. Its German headquarters is funded mainly by membership fees, private donations and grants, while most national sections are run by volunteer activists.

It publishes a periodical newsletter in English and, in German, the magazine Menschenrechte.