Human Rights League

The Human Rights League ( [et du citoyen] or LDH) of France is a Human Rights NGO association to observe, defend and promulgate human rights within the French Republic in all spheres of public life. The LDH is a member of the International Federation of Human Rights Leagues (FIDH). History The League was founded on 4 June 1898 by the republican Ludovic Trarieux to defend captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jew wrongly convicted for treason – this would be known as the Dreyfus Affair. Dissolved by the anticommunist regime of Vichy during World War II, 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, who had recently joined the French Communist Party (PCF), became its president. Opposed to the Algerian War and the massive use of torture by the French Army, the LDH called for demonstrations against the 1961 Algiers putsch. Today