OSCE announces winners of tolerance photo contest

ASTANA, 29 June 2010 - The winners of an OSCE photo contest on tolerance were announced today at an award ceremony on the margins of the OSCE High-level Conference on Tolerance and Non-Discrimination in Astana.

More than 100 photographers from 35 OSCE participating States and Partners for Co-operation submitted around 300 pictures for the contest, initiated and financed by Kazakhstan's OSCE Chairmanship.

"Tolerance, trust, tradition, transparency are the guiding principles for Kazakhstan's OSCE Chairmanship this year," said Roman Vassilenko, the Chairman of the Committee for International Information of Kazakhstan's Foreign Ministry, during the ceremony. "It is very important for all of us to see what is behind these principles, how they are implemented in practice, and contests like this contribute a lot to maintaining the link between political commitments and everyday lives of people".

The contest winners and finalists, whose works are on show at the Conference, were selected in mid-May by an international jury consisting of representatives of the Permanent Mission of Kazakhstan to the OSCE, the OSCE Secretariat, Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, Office of the High Commissioner on National Minorities, as well as a professional news photographer.

The winners - Eric Gourlan, a photographer residing in the Netherlands with many years of experience in Central Asian region (Tolerance alive), Rudi Dawia Kaufman, a graduate student of photography school in Wuerzburg, Germany (Black and white relationship), Andrey Liankevich, a photographer from Belarus (He has a female name), Vitaliy Ovsyannikov from Kharkiv, Ukraine (Sincere emotions) and Ilya Rozenbaum from Belgium (Hallelujah) - received a trip to Astana, where they attended the award ceremony.

One of the winners, Rudi Dawia Kaufman, said after the ceremony: "A good image makes people think. Therefore photography can be a powerful means of drawing attention to existing problems and promoting tolerance."

The full list of the contest winners and finalists, and a gallery of their photos, can be found at the contest page at //www.osce.org/item/43109.html

ASTANA, 29 June 2010 - The winners of an OSCE photo contest on tolerance were announced today at an award ceremony on the margins of the OSCE High-level Conference on Tolerance and Non-Discrimination in Astana. 

More than 100 photographers from 35 OSCE participating States and Partners for Co-operation submitted around 300 pictures for the contest, initiated and financed by Kazakhstan's OSCE Chairmanship.

"Tolerance, trust, tradition, transparency are the guiding principles for Kazakhstan's OSCE Chairmanship this year," said Roman Vassilenko, the Chairman of the Committee for International Information of Kazakhstan's Foreign Ministry, during the ceremony. "It is very important for all of us to see what is behind these principles, how they are implemented in practice, and contests like this contribute a lot to maintaining the link between political commitments and everyday lives of people".

The contest winners and finalists, whose works are on show at the Conference, were selected in mid-May by an international jury consisting of representatives of the Permanent Mission of Kazakhstan to the OSCE, the OSCE Secretariat, Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, Office of the High Commissioner on National Minorities, as well as a professional news photographer.

The winners - Eric Gourlan, a photographer residing in the Netherlands with many years of experience in Central Asian region (Tolerance alive), Rudi Dawia Kaufman, a graduate student of photography school in Wuerzburg, Germany (Black and white relationship), Andrey Liankevich, a photographer from Belarus (He has a female name), Vitaliy Ovsyannikov from Kharkiv, Ukraine (Sincere emotions) and Ilya Rozenbaum from Belgium (Hallelujah) - received a trip to Astana, where they attended the award ceremony.

One of the winners, Rudi Dawia Kaufman, said after the ceremony: "A good image makes people think. Therefore photography can be a powerful means of drawing attention to existing problems and promoting tolerance."

The full list of the contest winners and finalists, and a gallery of their photos, can be found at the contest page.