International Society for Human Rights
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The International Society for Human Rights (ISHR) is an international non-governmental, non-profit human rights organization with Consultative Status with the Council of Europe and is a member of the Liaison Committee of the Non-Governmental Organisations at the Council of Europe. The ISHR has observer status with the African Commission of Human and Peoples' Rights. It has associate status with the Department of Public Information of the United Nations and Roster Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
ISHR was founded in West Germany in 1972 as the Gesellschaft fur Menschenrechte (GFM), with the aim of promoting international understanding and tolerance in all areas of culture and society and so was committed from its inception to only support individuals who share this principle and, consequently, strive non-violently for their rights. It became the International Society for Human Rights in 1982, with the founding of branches in Austria, Switzerland, the UK and France. Since then it has grown to include 35 National Sections, National Groups, Regional Committees and Affiliated Organisations worldwide.
The record of ISHR has occasionally been questioned. It has been suggested that in contrast to human rights organizations such as amnesty international, FIAN or Human Rights Watch, which emphasize the unequivocal universality of human rights, the ISHR has been perceived as pursuing a selective emphasis of these rights by focusing on human rights violations in the states of the Eastern bloc during the cold war and on monitoring the right to freedom of religion in countries such as Vietnam and China. Yet this also appears to ignore that some third of the ISHR's Groups and Sections are in Africa.
The Society publishes its own periodicals "Human Rights Worldwide" (in English) and "Menschenrechte" (in German).
