OSCE officials discuss human rights violations

ASTANA, 26 November 2010 - The third and final part of the OSCE Review Conference, which focuses on the human dimension of security, began in Astana today and concludes Sunday. Previous parts of the Conference, held in Warsaw and Vienna, focused on the human, economic-environmental and politico-military dimensions of security.

Topics in focus at the Astana segment include freedom of the media, intolerance against migrants, combating human trafficking - particularly of children.

Madina Jarbussynova, Ambassador-at-large for Kazakhstan, which holds the 2010 OSCE Chairmanship, said the discussion of human-rights related matters at the Review Conference "unfortunately indicate that human rights are still violated in the OSCE region. The discussion of various aspects of these challenging issues will help us assess the situation
and develop concrete operating mechanisms."

Dunja Mijatovic, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, called on OSCE participating States to use the Summit to reaffirm their media freedom commitments with today's reality in mind, including commitments to ensure that the Internet remains an open and public forum for freedom of opinion and expression.

"We are far from achieving it. More and more governments in the OSCE area harm media freedom by curbing the rights of those who use new - or traditional - media to present critical, satirical, controversial and provocative views," she said. "It seems that policy makers in many OSCE countries not only want to apply the same restrictions to the Internet as to traditional media; they even favour the adoption if especially restrictive laws to control a medium that is, by its nature, uncontrollable."

States should use proportional responses that are in line with democratic requirements to deal with legitimate concerns about harmful content, or Internet use to conduct crimes, she said. Mijatovic also discussed the switch from analogue to digital broadcasting, saying handling this correctly could result in "a media landscape that protects plurality of opinion and freedom of expression."

"Well-informed people make well-informed decisions, which are the indispensable foundation that democracies build upon," she said.

During the 17-day Review Conference, which started in September, representatives from OSCE participating States and more than 500 non-governmental organizations review how OSCE countries are fulfilling the commitments they have undertaken to prepare for the 1-2 December OSCE Summit, also to be held in Astana.