<P> The rights - based strategy of dissent merged with the idea of human rights . The human rights movement included figures such as Valery Chalidze, Yuri Orlov, and Lyudmila Alexeyeva . Special groups were founded such as the Initiative Group for the Defense of Human Rights in the USSR (1969) and the Committee on Human Rights in the USSR (1970). Though faced with the loss of many members to prisons, labor camps, psychiatric institutions and exile, they documented abuses, wrote appeals to international human rights bodies, collected signatures for petitions, and attended trials . </P> <P> The signing of the Helsinki Accords (1975) containing human rights clauses provided civil rights campaigners with a new hope to use international instruments . This led to the creation of dedicated Helsinki Watch Groups in Moscow (Moscow Helsinki Group), Kiev (Ukrainian Helsinki Group), Vilnius (Lithuanian Helsinki Group), Tbilisi, and Erevan (1976--77). </P> <P> The Prague Spring (Czech: Pražské jaro, Slovak: Pražská jar, Russian: пражская весна) was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia starting on January 5, 1968, and running until August 20 of that year, when the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies (except for Romania) invaded the country . </P> <P> During World War II, Czechoslovakia fell into the Soviet sphere of influence, the Eastern Bloc . Since 1948 there were no parties other than the Communist Party in the country and it was indirectly managed by the Soviet Union . Unlike other countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the communist take - over in Czechoslovakia in 1948 was, although as brutal as elsewhere, a genuine popular movement . Reform in the country did not lead to the convulsions seen in Hungary . </P>

How did the civil rights movement help minority groups achieve equal rights and opportunities