Activities and Achievements
The BHHRG website states as the main activities of the Group:
- Monitoring the conduct of elections in OSCE member states.
- Examining issues relating to press freedom and freedom of speech
- Reporting on conditions in prisons and psychiatric institutions
- Covering asylum and immigration issues
The BHHRG publishes reports from first-hand observers, concentrating particularly on election monitoring in central and eastern Europe, as well as publishing frequent unsigned commentaries (just like the Economist does) about ongoing events in the region. A common theme in many of its publications has been a critical view of Western "meddling in the internal affairs" of central and east European countries, notably the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Belarus.
Among its achievements the BHHRG's website claims:
- 1992 – BHHRG was the first NGO to expose the human rights situation in the former Soviet republic of Georgia
- 1993 – BHHRG exposure of fraud in the conduct of Russia's constitutional referendum was later admitted by the authorities.
- 1996 – BHHRG report of election fraud in Armenia's presidential election was only acknowledged in 1998
- 1998 – BHHRG predicted war in Kosovo in late February (after US envoy Robert Gelbard called the Kosovo Albanian separatist KLA a 'terrorist group')
- 1999 – BHHRG was the first human rights group to visit the notorious Sangatte camp for asylum seekers in France
- 2001 – BHHRG exposed the scandal of trafficking in women from Moldova
Read more about this topic: British Helsinki Human Rights Group
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