News and press releases

ASHGABAT, 6 March 2019 –The Foreign Affairs Ministry of Turkmenistan, supported by the OSCE Centre in Ashgabat, hosted today in Ashgabat a meeting of the technical working groups on the Regional infrastructures Confidence Building Measures (RI-CBM) within the framework of the Istanbul Process on Afghanistan...

BRUSSELS, 6 March 2019 – OSCE Secretary General Thomas Greminger launched today in Brussels a report that gives a detailed picture of the physical, sexual and psychological violence many women and girls have had to endure in South-Eastern and Eastern Europe in the last decades.

Enhancing the capacity of a civil society coalition campaigning against discrimination and hate speech in Georgian politics and media was the focus of a workshop organized by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) in Borjomi, Georgia on 5 and 6 March 2019. The workshop

Compared with the previous reporting period, the SMM recorded more ceasefire violations in Donetsk region and fewer in Luhansk region. The Mission saw anti-tank mines close to road H-20 near Olenivka and Berezove. The Mission monitored adherence to the ceasefire to enable repairs to essential civilian infrastructure in both Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Restrictions of the Mission’s access continued in all three disengagement areas. Its access was also restricted at a checkpoint near non-government-controlled Verkhnoshyrokivske, preventing the SMM from following up on reports of a civilian casualty...

Current approaches to increasing the effectiveness of criminal policy were the topic of a two-day OSCE-supported conference that began in Ak-Bulak near Almaty, Kazakhstan on 6 March 2019...

Women from across the security and law enforcement sectors in Kyrgyzstan met at a national forum in Bishkek on 4 March to discuss ways of promoting gender equality in their fields of work.

VIENNA, 5 March 2019 – The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Harlem Désir, together with the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection for the right to freedom of opinion and expression, David Kaye, today welcomed in a letter sent to the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union the initiative of a new directive on protection of whistleblowers, but also expressed a number of potential concerns about the current draft text.