News and press releases

An OSCE-supported two-day roundtable discussion and workshop on promoting rural entrepreneurship for women of the South Kazakhstan Region concluded on 21 April 2017 in Shymkent...

An OSCE-supported two-day international seminar aimed at countering the illicit trafficking of new psychoactive substances concluded in Almaty, Kazakhstan on 21 April 2017...

MARY, Turkmenistan, 20 April 2017 – An OSCE-organized three-day course on best practices in developing a national strategy for solar energy concluded today at the Turkmen State Energy Institute in the city of Mary, Turkmenistan...

The SMM observed a similar number of ceasefire violations in Donetsk region, and more in Luhansk region, compared with the previous reporting period. The Mission followed up on a report of damage to a house in Molodizhne from gunfire. The SMM monitored the disengagement areas near Stanytsia Luhanska, Zolote and Petrivske, but its access there and elsewhere remained restricted. It observed weapons in violation of withdrawal lines on both sides of the contact line. The Mission followed up on media reports of a gathering in Donetsk city centre. The SMM continued to note long queues at entry-exit checkpoints. The Mission monitored one border area currently not under government control. The SMM monitored a gathering at the Odessa regional court of appeals, as well as the continuation of protests at branches of the Sberbank of Russia in Kyiv, Odessa, Dnipro and Kharkiv...

The OSCE Mission to Skopje on 20 April 2017 presented the findings and recommendations of an evaluation of the OSCE’s training courses for police on the Law on Criminal Procedure, which were conducted between 2011 and 2015...

The implementation of the revised minimum standard rules for the treatment of prisoners (Nelson Mandela Rules) was the focus of a meeting of practitioners in the OSCE region held on 19 and 20 April 2017 in Warsaw.

WARSAW, 19 April 2017 – Michael Georg Link, Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), today raised concern about the compressed execution schedule in the State of Arkansas this month and called on the United States to once more consider the complete abolition of capital punishment, in the context of the international debate linking the practice with torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment...