50 Years of the Helsinki Act: What It Means for Belarus and the World

These days the Helsinki+50 conference is taking place, dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Helsinki Final Act of 1975. At that time, 35 countries, including the USSR, agreed that security in Europe is impossible without human rights. This agreement changed the course of the Cold War. It still shapes the destinies of countries, including Belarus.

The event is organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland with the participation of representatives of OSCE member states, human rights organizations, and experts. More details — on the website of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland (um.fi).

About the Helsinki Agreements

The Helsinki Final Act was prepared with three sets of agreements. Diplomats called them "baskets".

• Basket 1 – Security in Europe: inviolability of borders, territorial integrity of states, confidence-building measures in the military sphere (advance notification of military exercises and major troop movements, presence of observers at military exercises), peaceful settlement of disputes, renunciation of the use of force. This basket was especially important for the USSR.
• Basket 2 – Cooperation: economy (trade, industry, transport, energy), science and technology (exchange of knowledge and technologies), environment, cultural exchanges
• Basket 3 – Human Rights: commitment to human rights and fundamental freedoms, including freedom of movement, contacts, information, culture, and education; the right to work, the right to education and medical care; equality and the right of peoples to determine their destiny, to define their internal and external political status.

The “human rights basket” was pushed by Western countries. At that moment, it sounded revolutionary. The USSR planned to deal with the humanitarian block only superficially. However, one of the points of the Helsinki Agreements was the requirement to publish these documents in newspapers of all participating countries. And in the Soviet Union, the agreements were printed in the newspaper "Pravda".

Why the Belarusian Helsinki Committee?

After the publication of the Helsinki Agreements in the newspaper “Pravda”, independent «Helsinki» groups of citizens began to appear in different countries of the socialist bloc to monitor compliance with the signed document.

Dissidents gained a formal legal and moral basis for resistance, for criticizing violations of human rights by communist regimes, and for organizing movements for democratic change.

• On May 12, 1976, at a press conference convened at the apartment of academician Andrei Sakharov, the creation of the Moscow Helsinki Group was announced.
• On November 9, 1976, the Ukrainian Public Group to Promote the Implementation of the Helsinki Agreements appeared.
• On November 27, 1976 – the Lithuanian Helsinki Group.
• January 1977 – the Georgian Helsinki Group, and so on.

Activists of the Polish «Solidarity» referred to the Helsinki Act, arguing that their demands were not an «undermining of socialism», but the implementation of international obligations that Poland itself had publicly undertaken.

On November 1, 1995, the Belarusian Helsinki Committee was officially registered. “Helsinki” refers to the value dimension of the document that changed the world.

At the Helsinki+50 Conference

Expert of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee Ekaterina Deikalo and expert of the Human Rights Center “Viasna” Natalia Satsunkevich spoke at a side event of the Conference dedicated to the persecution of Belarusian human rights defenders. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya gave a keynote speech.

Ekaterina Deikalo emphasized that today Belarusian human rights defenders face a task that goes beyond their daily work. It is the need to preserve Belarusian human rights organizations at the institutional level, to preserve the sector as an institution, so that it can be brought back to the country when the opportunity arises.

Ekaterina Deikalo: «This also means the need to keep our organizations and teams sustainable, so that we are ready to play our role in the transitional period in Belarus, because for democratic changes, comprehensive legal reform, constitutional process, and, hopefully, proper accountability of those responsible, the work of human rights defenders, including public oversight and expertise, is absolutely essential.»

Ekaterina Deikalo also stressed that preserving the civil society sector, as well as ensuring effective accountability, are two necessary conditions for the resilience of Belarusian society and for a democratic Belarus. And a stable and democratic Belarus, in turn, is extremely important for a stable and secure Europe.

The human rights defenders also noted the importance of supporting Belarusians in exile, as well as including Belarusians inside the country into the European context through expanded educational, cultural, and other opportunities. This is also important to balance state and Russian propaganda.