News and press releases

VIENNA, 3 August 2017 – OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Harlem Désir today expressed his concern in a letter to the Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs regarding the decision by the Ministry of Defence to file a complaint against journalist Tomasz Piątek. The Defence Ministry claims that Piątek may have committed a criminal offence in publishing his new book, Macierewicz and His Secrets...

The OSCE Presence in Albania is inviting prospective candidates to apply for its Youth Trail initiative, a programme aiming to promote the OSCE values of democracy, co-operation, peace and security among young people in the Western Balkans...

MINSK, 3 August 2017 – The Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office in Ukraine and in the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG), Ambassador Martin Sajdik, made the following statement to the press after the meeting of the TCG and its working groups in Minsk on 2 August 2017:...

The SMM recorded more ceasefire violations, but fewer explosions in Donetsk region and fewer ceasefire violations in Luhansk region compared with the previous reporting period. The SMM continued monitoring the disengagement areas. The SMM cameras recorded ceasefire violations between 2km and 10km east and east-north-east and west of the Zolote and Stanytsia Luhanska disengagement areas respectively, all assessed as outside the disengagement areas. Its access remained restricted there and elsewhere. Armed “DPR” members impeded the SMM’s access to areas east of Mariupol for a fifth consecutive day in Verkhnoshyrokivske. For more than seven hours “DPR” members held the SMM and its monitoring equipment at checkpoints near non-government-controlled Olenivka and prevented it from leaving.* The SMM facilitated and monitored adherence to the ceasefire to enable repairs of infrastructure in Shchastia, Zolote and Artema. The Mission visited one border area not under government control...

DUSHANBE, 2 August 2017 – Members of Tajikistan’s national working group responsible for the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1540 on preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, together with representatives of relevant ministries and other state agencies from Belarus and Kyrgyzstan, will take part in an OSCE-supported trilateral peer review meeting from 2 to 5 August 2017 in Dushanbe. This is the second such trilateral meeting since August 2016...

ASTANA, 2 August 2017- The OSCE-supported Second International Women’s Forum on Future Energy: Women, Business, and the Global Economy began today in Astana for some 200 participants including high-level government officials and representatives of Kazakhstan’s Parliament, civil society and the business community...

WARSAW, 2 August 2017- Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir, Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), praised efforts by countries in the OSCE region to promote greater awareness and recognition of the genocide against the Roma and Sinti people during the Second World War, including increased attention to educating youth about this horrible crime at the hands of the Nazi regime...