News and press releases

PODGORICA, 2 July 2014 – Finishing a two-day official visit to Montenegro, OSCE media freedom representative Dunja Mijatović today said she remains concerned about journalists’ safety and about the lack of unity among members of the media in the country...

ASHGABAT, 2 July 2014 – Best practices in airport security management and operations were the focus of an OSCE-organized study visit to Germany that concluded in Munich today...

The role of political parties in parliaments and the separation between parties and the state were the focus of an expert seminar organized by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) in Warsaw on 1 and 2 July 2014.

CHISINAU, 2 July 2014 – The Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office for the Transdniestrian Settlement Process Ambassador Radojko Bogojević concluded his visit to the region today...

Thirty representatives of social service providers from various regions of Ukraine were trained on effectively handling domestic violence cases and working with offenders, during a two-day session in Lviv in western Ukraine that ended on 2 July 2014...

BAKU, 2 July 2014 – Ilkka Kanerva, the former Foreign Minister of Finland and former Chairman-in-Office of the OSCE, was elected President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly on the final day of its 2014 Annual Session in Baku...

BAKU, 2 July 2014 – The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly has adopted the Baku Declaration, lending political support to wide-ranging policy recommendations for the OSCE and its 57 participating States in the fields of political affairs and security, economics, the environment and human rights...

WARSAW, 2 July 2014 – Michael Georg Link of Germany assumed his new duties on Tuesday as director of the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR)...

BAKU, 1 July 2014 – By a majority of three-to-one, OSCE parliamentarians approved a resolution that condemns Russia’s recent actions in Ukraine during a plenary meeting today at the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly’s 2014 Annual Session Baku...

Tensions remained in parts of Donbas. The situation was calm elsewhere across the country.

A legal manual that will help lawyers improve their performance in the civil court proceedings was presented by the OSCE Presence in Albania and the Albanian National Chamber of Advocates at an event held on 1 July 2014 in Tirana...

On 1 July 2014 the 46th meeting under the Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism (IPRM) took place in Ergneti, co-facilitated by Toivo Klaar, the Head of the EU Monitoring Mission in Georgia (EUMM), and Ambassador Angelo Gnädinger, the Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office for the South Caucasus...

VIENNA, 1 July 2014 – OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatović today said she was outraged with the illegal detention in the Luhansk region of two Ukrainian journalists from Hromadske TV...

Representatives of government institutions, parliament, political parties, civil society and international organizations met in Tirana on 30 June 2014 to discuss the electoral code reform and the implementation of election recommendations made by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR)...

Tensions remained in parts of Donbas. The situation was calm elsewhere across the country. The SMM observed peaceful marches marking Ukraine’s Constitution Day throughout the country. On 28 June the remaining four SMM monitors from the Luhansk team were released after a month’s detention...

BAKU, 30 June 2014-- Members of the Russian and Ukrainian Delegations to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly met today on the sidelines of the 23rd OSCE PA Annual Session in Baku. The Delegations welcomed the opportunity to continue their direct communication following their initial meeting in Vienna in April, as first proposed by OSCE PA Vice-President Doris Barnett (MP, Germany) and hosted by OSCE PA President Ranko Krivokapic, who also initiated today's meeting...

VIENNA, 30 June 2014 – OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatović today said she was saddened by the death of Anatoliy Klyan, a cameraman with Russian Perviy Kanal, in eastern Ukraine. Mijatović expressed her condolences to Klyan’s family and colleagues...

High school students from Idjevan, Tavush region of Armenia participated in simulated court proceedings on 28 June 2014...

Tensions remained in parts of Donbas. The situation was calm elsewhere across the country. Late on 26 June the four SMM monitors from the Donetsk team were released after 32 days of detention. The four SMM monitors from the Luhansk team are still detained...

On 30 June 2014 some 140 community police officers from territorial divisions of Yerevan city police department completed a training course on communication and negotiation techniques held by the Armenian Police and the OSCE Office in Yerevan...

A OSCE-supported workshop on managing water resources was held on 27 and 28 June 2014 in Kyzylorda, Southern Kazakhstan for some 30 members of the Aral-Syrdariya Water Basin Council as well as representative of local authorities, academia, the business community and non-governmental organizations...

From 26 to 28 June 2014, the OSCE Center in Bishkek in co-operation with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) conducted a series of events in Batken, Osh and Jalal-Abad in the south of Kyrgyzstan to enhance public confidence in Kyrgyz police...

BERN, 30 June 2014- OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Swiss Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter, today expressed his gratitude to Ambassador Janez Lenarčič of Slovenia, the outgoing Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), for his work over the last six years...

BAKU, 29 June 2014 – The rising tide of extremism, radicalism and xenophobia and the challenge it presents to the OSCE area was the topic of a special debate today at the 23rd OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Annual Session in Baku...

Bern, 28 June, 2014- The OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Swiss Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter, relieved to hear that the four members of the Luhansk-based team of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission were set free, commended the tireless work of the SMM towards the release of the team members who were in captivity since May 29, 2014.

KYIV, 28 June 2014- The four members of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission’s Luhansk-based monitoring team that went missing on May 29 were released this evening after exactly one month in captivity...

BAKU, 28 June 2014 – Swiss Foreign Minister and OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Didier Burkhalter, took part today in the Inaugural Plenary Session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly’s 23rd annual session in Baku...

BAKU, 28 June 2014 – Russian State Duma Chair Sergey Naryshkin and Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada Deputy Chair Ruslan Koshulynskyi addressed the opening plenary of the 23rd OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Annual Session in Baku today, offering contrasting views on the crisis in Ukraine but pledging support for a diplomatic resolution...

BAKU, 28 June 2014 – The 23rd OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Annual Session has begun in Baku, with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Swiss President and OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Didier Burkhalter addressing nearly 300 parliamentarians from more than 50 nations...

VIENNA, 28 June 2014 – OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatović today expressed her concern about steps of the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic” aimed at controlling media of the Donetsk region in Ukraine...

The situation across the country was calm. A Holocaust memorial was vandalised in Kherson region, and some internally displaced persons (IDPs) from the Roma community faced difficulty in having their housing needs met in Kharkiv. Four SMM monitors from the Luhansk team have been missing for 28 days. Four SMM monitors from the Donetsk team who had been missing for 32 days were released late on 26 June.

VIENNA, 27 June 2014 – Representatives of Ukrainian and Russian journalists’ unions agreed to co-operate on steps to increase journalists’ safety and professionalism as they met again today in Vienna. The meeting was hosted by the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media with the purpose to forge a plan to improve the situation for media working in and around Ukraine...

TIRANA, 27 June 2014 – Fifty-five senior anti-corruption officials and leading civil society representatives from OSCE participating States in eastern and south-eastern Europe, the South Caucasus and Central Asia came together for a two-day regional expert seminar on preventing corruption. The seminar ended today in Tirana...

PRISHTINË/PRIŠTINA, 27 June 2014 – Municipal mechanisms for the protection of community rights and interests should be further improved to ensure more active participation by communities in local governance and public affairs, concludes a report by the OSCE Mission in Kosovo published today...

For third consecutive year, the OSCE Mission to Skopje supported a week-long camp from 18 to 24 June 2014 as part of the Young Men Leadership Project, organized by YMCA Bitola and US Peace Corps in Krusevo. One of the themes of this year’s camp was gender equality...

ULAANBAATAR, 27 June 2014 – The OSCE Centre in Bishkek funded a study visit to the Mongolian capital on 24 to 27 June 2014 of fifteen representatives from Kyrgyzstan’s Parliament, the Central Election Commission, the State Registration Service, the President’s Office, the Foreign Ministry and other key state agencies to familiarize participants with the population registration system and use of biometric data in Mongolia...

KARAGANDA, Kazakhstan, 27 June 2014 – The practical implementation of current national legislation on religious activities and religious associations was the focus of an OSCE-supported roundtable discussion held today in Karaganda, central Kazakhstan...

BAKU, 27 June 2014 – OSCE Parliamentary Assembly President Ranko Krivokapic today welcomed the release of four Donetsk-based monitors from the OSCE’s Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine after they had spent 32 days in captivity...

Evaluating the performance of judges to help improve their skills was the focus of a roundtable event co-organized by OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and the OSCE Mission to Moldova on 27 June 2014 in Chisinau.

Senior and mid-level national human rights institutions (NHRI) staff took part in a practical training course led by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). The course was held at the first NHRI Academy, which was organized jointly with the European Network of National Human Rights Institutions (ENNHRI) and the School of Public Policy (SPP) at Central European University, in Budapest from 23 to 27 June 2014.

Bern, 27 June 2014 – While expressing his gratitude to all who helped in setting four of the eight monitors of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission free, OSCE Chairperson-in-Office and Swiss Foreign Minister, Didier Burkhalter, he emphasized the leading role of the SMM in the efforts for the release of the four monitors from the Donetsk-based SMM team to whom contact was lost on 26 May; he thanked all participating States for their support in this regard.

Kyiv, June 27, 2014- The four members of the Donetsk-based monitoring team of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMMU) that went missing since late May were released late yesterday after 32 days in captivity.

BAKU, 26 June 2014 – The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly’s most important annual gathering begins on Saturday, 28 June in Baku with addresses by senior governmental and parliamentary leaders at the center of some of the international community’s most pressing security issues...

Tensions remained in parts of Donbas. The situation was calm elsewhere across the country. Several railway tracks in Donbas have been damaged by unknown perpetrators. Four SMM monitors from the Donetsk team have been missing for 31 days and four SMM monitors from the Luhansk team for 28 days. The Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus called for their release...

ASHGABAT, 26 June 2014 – Effective investigation techniques in combatting money laundering were the focus of an OSCE-supported training course that concluded in Ashgabat today...

BISHKEK, 26 June 2014 – On the occasion of the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, the OSCE Centre in Bishkek together with the National Torture Prevention Centre, Freedom House and the non-governmental organization Golos Svobody held a roundtable meeting on torture and ill-treatment in detention facilities and the army in Kyrgyzstan...

BAKU, 25 June 2014 – After two years of advance work and several preparatory visits, the 23rd OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Annual Session in Baku is becoming a reality...

The situation across the country was calm. Four SMM monitors from the Donetsk team have been missing for 30 days and four SMM monitors from the Luhansk team for 27 days.

30- this is the number of days civilian, international monitors of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine have been held captive in eastern Ukraine. Although four members of the Donetsk-based team were freed on 26 June, four members of the Luhansk-based monitoring team are still being held. 30- this is the number of days their families, friends and colleagues are waiting for them. We call for their immediate and unconditional release. For updates follow us on Facebook- facebook.com/oscesmmu and Twitter- twitter.com/OSCE_SMM

SKOPJE, 25 June 2014 – The political and socio-economic factors that lead to terrorist radicalization and recruitment were the focus of an OSCE seminar which started today in Skopje, and brought together some 50 participants, including security experts from eight countries and representatives of state agencies and civil society...