The Human Rights League (french: Ligue des droits de l’homme ''

t du citoyen T, or t, is the twentieth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''tee'' (pronounced ), plural ''tees''. It is deri ...

' or LDH) of

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

is a

Human Rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...

NGO association to observe, defend and promulgation of Rights Man within the French Republic in all spheres of public life. The LDH is a member of the

International Federation of Human Rights Leagues The International Federation for Human Rights (french: Fédération internationale des ligues des droits de l'homme; FIDH) is a non-governmental federation for human rights organizations. Founded in 1922, FIDH is the third oldest international h ...

(FIDH).

History

The League was founded on 4 June 1898 by the republican Ludovic Trarieux to defend captain

Alfred Dreyfus Alfred Dreyfus ( , also , ; 9 October 1859 – 12 July 1935) was a French artillery officer of Jewish ancestry whose trial and conviction in 1894 on charges of treason became one of the most polarizing political dramas in modern French history. ...

, a Jew wrongly convicted for

treason Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplo ...

– this would be known as the

Dreyfus Affair The Dreyfus affair (french: affaire Dreyfus, ) was a political scandal that divided the French Third Republic from 1894 until its resolution in 1906. "L'Affaire", as it is known in French, has come to symbolise modern injustice in the Francop ...

. Dissolved by the

anticommunist Anti-communism is political and ideological opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in the Russian Empire, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, when the United States and the ...

regime of

Vichy Vichy (, ; ; oc, Vichèi, link=no, ) is a city in the Allier department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of central France, in the historic province of Bourbonnais. It is a spa and resort town and in World War II was the capital of ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, it was clandestinely reconstituted in 1943 by a central committee including Pierre Cot, René Cassin and Félix Gouin. The LDH was refounded after the Liberation.

Paul Langevin Paul Langevin (; ; 23 January 1872 – 19 December 1946) was a French physicist who developed Langevin dynamics and the Langevin equation. He was one of the founders of the ''Comité de vigilance des intellectuels antifascistes'', an ant ...

, who had recently joined the

French Communist Party The French Communist Party (french: Parti communiste français, ''PCF'' ; ) is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism. The PCF is a member of the Party of the European Left, and its MEPs sit in the European ...

(PCF), became its president. Opposed to the

Algerian War The Algerian War, also known as the Algerian Revolution or the Algerian War of Independence,( ar, الثورة الجزائرية '; '' ber, Tagrawla Tadzayrit''; french: Guerre d'Algérie or ') and sometimes in Algeria as the War of 1 November ...

and the massive use of torture by the French Army, the LDH called for demonstrations against the 1961 Algiers putsch.

Today

The LDH has opposed itself to the 23 February 2005 law on the "positive role of colonisation", which has been accused of being part of a revisionist discourse. President

Jacques Chirac Jacques René Chirac (, , ; 29 November 193226 September 2019) was a Politics of France, French politician who served as President of France from 1995 to 2007. Chirac was previously Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and from 1986 to ...

finally had the law, which had been voted by his UMP majority, repealed start of 2006. The LDH also took position in favor of the recognition of foreigners' right to vote in local elections end of December 2005. Besides, it took part in

prison A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, corre ...

ers' movement organized since 1970 by the GIP (', Group of Information on Prisons), founded by

Michel Foucault Paul-Michel Foucault (, ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, writer, political activist, and literary critic. Foucault's theories primarily address the relationship between power and knowledge, and ho ...

and Daniel Deferre. The LDH also supports Italian former activist Cesare Battisti and American

Ira Einhorn Ira Samuel Einhorn (May 15, 1940 – April 3, 2020), known as "The Unicorn Killer", was an American convicted murderer and environmental activist. He was convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend, Holly Maddux. On September 9, 1977, Maddux di ...

. The LDH has also opposed itself to

Nicolas Sarkozy Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa (; ; born 28 January 1955) is a French politician who served as President of France from 2007 to 2012. Born in Paris, he is of Hungarian, Greek Jewish, and French origin. Mayor of Neuilly-sur-Se ...

's policies, which it deems "repressive". In its 2003 report, it declared that "since the

we had never seen such a strong rollback of human rights in France". The LDH has filed a complaint end of 2005 concerning a CIA flight which landed in Le Bourget airport in the frame of the so-called "

war on terror The war on terror, officially the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), is an ongoing international counterterrorism military campaign initiated by the United States following the September 11 attacks. The main targets of the campaign are militant ...

" (see March 2006 in Europe). End of 2004, the LDH counted 7,487 members, organized into 309 local sections and 57

federation A federation (also known as a federal state) is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government ( federalism). In a federation, the self-gover ...

s. In 1932, it could boast 170,000 members.

Cultural references

* In his 1970 autobiographical book ''Papillon'', Henri Charriere angrily laments the lack of interest shown in the treatment of prisoners sent to the penal colonies of

French Guiana French Guiana ( or ; french: link=no, Guyane ; gcr, label= French Guianese Creole, Lagwiyann ) is an overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France on the northern Atlantic coast of South America in the Guianas ...

, citing LDH in particular,

I trampled the organisation of the Ligue des Droits de l'Homme et du Citoyen that never spoke out and said, "stop killing people as surely as if they were guillotined: abolish the mass sadism among the employees of the prison service." I trampled the fact that not a single organisation or association ever questioned the top men of this system to find out how and why eighty per cent of the people who were sent away every two years vanished.

List of presidents

* Ludovic Trarieux (1898–1903) *

Francis de Pressensé Francis Charles Dehault de Pressensé (September 30, 1853, Paris – January 19, 1914, Paris) was a French politician and journalist. Biography He was the son of Protestant religious leader Edmond de Pressensé. He was educated at the Lyceé Bon ...

(1903–1914) * Ferdinand Buisson (1914–1926,

Nobel peace prize The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor and armaments (military weapons and equipment) manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Chemistry, Physics, Physiolo ...

in 1927, along with the German

Ludwig Quidde Ludwig Quidde (; 23 March 1858, Free City of Bremen – 4 March 1941) was a German politician and pacifist who is mainly remembered today for his acerbic criticism of German Emperor Wilhelm II. Quidde's long career spanned four different era ...

) *

Victor Basch Basch Viktor Vilém, or Victor-Guillaume Basch (18 August 1863/1865, Budapest – 10 January 1944) was a French politician and professor of germanistics and philosophy at the Sorbonne descending from Hungary. He was engaged in the Zionist move ...

(1926–1944) *

(1944–1946) * Sicard de Plauzoles (1946–1953) * Émile Kahn (1953–1958) * Daniel Mayer (1958–1975) *

Henri Noguères Henri is an Estonian, Finnish, French, German and Luxembourgish form of the masculine given name Henry. People with this given name ; French noblemen :'' See the ' List of rulers named Henry' for Kings of France named Henri.'' * Henri I de Mon ...

(1975–1984) * Yves Jouffa (1984–1991) * Madeleine Rebérioux (1991–1995) * Henri Leclerc (1995–2000) *

Michel Tubiana Michel Tubiana (24 November 1952 – 2 October 2021) was a French jurist and lawyer. He served as President of the Human Rights League of France from 2000 to 2005. Biography Born in Algiers in 1952, Tubiana's family moved to Paris in 1962. His ...

(2000–2005) * Jean-Pierre Dubois (2005–2011) * Pierre Tartakowsky (2011–2015) * Françoise Dumont (2015–2017) * Malik Salemkour (2017–2022) * Patrick Baudouin (since 2022)

Notes

External links