News and press releases

Belgrade, 30 April 2024- The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) today opened an election observation mission for the 2 June local elections in Serbia, following an official invitation from the national authorities.

The OSCE Moscow Mechanism mission of experts undertaken by Professor Veronika Bílková, Dr. Cecilie Hellestveit and Dr. Elīna Šteinerte presented their findings to the OSCE Permanent Council on 25 April 2024, collected in the report entitled ‘Report on Violations and Abuses of International Humanitarian and Human Rights Law, War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity, related to the Arbitrary Deprivation of Liberty of Ukrainian Civilians by the Russian Federation’.

SKOPJE, 25 April 2024 – North Macedonia’s presidential election campaign was competitive and fundamental freedoms including media freedom were respected, but important areas of the presidential contest that included campaign rules, access to the media, and allocation of state funding are not regulated, undermining the key principle of legal certainty, international observers said in a statement today.

To combat the “digital information disorder”, which refers to misinformation, disinformation, and malign information in the digital realm, the OSCE Transnational Threats Department, together with the National Counter-Terrorism Council of Mongolia (NCTC), organized a regional expert-level conference in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia on 23 and 24 April: “Addressing the Prevailing Digital Information Disorder: Countering the Use of the Internet by Terrorists and Violent Extremists”.

It will not be possible to observe the upcoming elections in Lithuania as the invitation extended to the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) was made conditional on the exclusion of nationals from certain OSCE states, in breach of the commitments made by all

VIENNA, 22 April 2024 – While civil society organizations play a crucial role in monitoring and ensuring accountability for violations of international law in times of crisis, it is becoming increasingly difficult in many places for them to carry out their work effectively or safely, OSCE leaders said as a two-day conference began today.

VALLETTA/VIENNA, 19 April 2024 – OSCE Chairperson-in-Office and Minister for Foreign and European Affairs and Trade of Malta Ian Borg and OSCE Secretary General Helga Maria Schmid made the following statement regarding the actions taken by the Republika Srpska National Assembly to unilaterally transfer competences from the State to the entity level with the aim of creating a parallel electoral system within the entity.