International Society for Human Rights

The International Society for Human Rights (ISHR) is an international non-governmental, non-profit human rights organization with Participative 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 is seated in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and was founded in West Germany in 1972 as the Gesellschaft für 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.

The initiator was Iwan I. Agrusow, a former Russian forced laborer, who had decided to stay in West Germany after World War II due to the treatment of former forced labourers in the Soviet Union (many of them were sent to Gulag upon returning).

[1][2] Well known members of ISHR include West German Chancellor Ludwig Erhard, former Austro-Hungarian Crown Prince Otto von Habsburg, former Attorney General of Germany Ludwig Martin and Chinese human rights activist Harry Wu.

The German Democratic Republic (East Germany) declared the International Society for Human Rights an "enemy of the state" in 1975, and the Stasi launched a campaign against the human rights organisation, attempting to discredit it.