News and press releases

Based on a shortfall in the number of short-term observers provided by OSCE states due to the COVID-19 pandemic and associated travel and health restrictions, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) has decided to limit its missions in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine to

VIENNA, 9 October 2020 – The 22nd Central Asia Media Conference, organized online by the Office of the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media (RFoM), concluded today. Over the course of the three-day conference, around 150 journalists, representatives of NGOs, academia, international experts, and government agencies from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan as well as Mongolia, discussed a broad range of issues related to freedom of the media and freedom of information in the region, with a special focus on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic...

The Annual Prosecutorial Symposium, which, due to the pandemic, took place in an online format on 8 and 9 October 2020, gathered some 150 prosecutors, judges and other criminal justice professionals who took part in a number of panel discussions on criminal matters...

The role of parliament in oversight of the security sector in Uzbekistan was the focus of an OSCE event in Tashkent on 8 October 2020. Twenty members of the Oliy Majlis (parliament), coming from both the Legislative Chamber and the Senate, took part in the event. The workshop was organized, in a blended format, jointly by the OSCE Conflict Prevention Centre and the OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Uzbekistan, and supported by speakers from the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights and the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly...

WARSAW, 9 October 2020 – Ahead of tomorrow’s World Day against the Death Penalty, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) emphasized in its new report that individuals facing the death penalty must have access to fair trial guarantees, the right of pardon or commutation, and equal protection of the law without discrimination...

Summary The SMM recorded 36 ceasefire violations in Donetsk region and two in Luhansk region. In the previous reporting period, it recorded three ceasefire violations in Donetsk region and one in Luhansk region. The Mission continued monitoring the disengagement areas near Stanytsia Luhanska,

VIENNA, 8 October 2020 – The recent reduction in violence, following the Trilateral Contact Group’s adoption of additional measures to strengthen the ceasefire on 22 July, shows once again that with political will, concrete results can be achieved on the ground, said Yaşar Halit Çevik, Chief Monitor of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine, in his address to the OSCE Permanent Council today in Vienna...