News and press releases

YEREVAN, 6 October 2017 – During his visit to Yerevan, OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Harlem Désir underlined the need to continue the fruitful co-operation between his office and Armenia to promote the freedom of the media...

OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM) Lamberto Zannier presented the first ever children’s illustrated Serbian-Albanian/Albanian-Serbian dictionary (Mali rečnik/Fjalor i vogël) to pupils in two primary schools in Bujanovac and Preševo today. Over the next three days, the dictionary

VIENNA, 2 October 2017 – The decision of the Irish government to call a referendum on whether blasphemy should remain an offence in the Irish Constitution was welcomed by the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media (RFoM) Harlem Désir in a letter to Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar today.

Promoting the participation of persons with disabilities in political and public life was the focus of an OSCE Mission to Skopje-organized workshop that took place on 28 September 2017 in Skopje.

While concluding that political parties were able to campaign freely in Albania’s 25 June 2017 parliamentary elections and that fundamental freedoms were respected, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) notes in its  final report an overall lack of public trust in the

VIENNA, 26 September 2017 – “I welcome last night's release of Kadri Gürsel after almost a year in prison. The charges against him must also be dropped as a matter of urgency,” OSCE media freedom representative Harlem Désir said today.

VIENNA, 22 September 2017 –The release from house arrest of Mykola Semena, a journalist with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, has been noted by OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Harlem Désir, who however condemned the conviction and imposition of a ban on “public activities”.