News and press releases

An advanced 10-day training course on drug trafficking investigation held by the OSCE Mission for the Kosovo Police drug squad concluded in Prishtinë/Priština on 31 May 2013...

BISHKEK, 31 May 2013- Developing the analytical skills of anti-terrorism personnel in Kyrgyzstan was the purpose of a one-week training course from that concluded today in Bishkek...

Reform of Kyrgyzstan’s election legislation was the topic of several OSCE-supported public hearings held in Bishkek on 31 May 2013...

ASTANA, 31 May 2013 – Legal standards and practices ranging from criminal justice to administrative law topped the agenda of a conference held today in Astana to mark the 20th anniversary of Kazakhstan’s Legislation Institute...

Academic research and debates on regional security issues, conflict management, and specific regional challenges following the withdrawal of international troops from Afghanistan in 2014 are key activity areas of the OSCE Academy in Bishkek, said its Director Maxim Ryabkov in his address to the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna on 30 May 2013...

ASHGABAT, 31 May 2013 – A series of five-day training courses for border officials and law enforcement officers on integrated border management techniques, organized by the OSCE Centre in Ashgabat, ended with a final event in northern Turkmenistan today...

A five-day study visit to Finland for senior customs and trade officials from Tajikistan ended in Helsinki on 31 May 2013...

BUDAPEST, 30 May 2013 – The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Dunja Mijatović, today expressed concern that the new draft Law on Media and Audiovisual Media Services would restrict media freedom in the country...

ASHGABAT, 30 May 2013- Freedom of the media and the legal regulation of the Internet was the focus of an OSCE-organized roundtable discussion that concluded in Ashgabat today...

A five-day training course on organizational development for national minorities in Armenia kicked off in Yerevan on 31 May 2013. The class, which receives support from the OSCE Office in Yerevan, targets heads and representatives of youth branches of national minority NGOs...

The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and the Italian authorities signed an agreement on 29 May 2013 for training of Italian law enforcement officers in recognizing, understanding and investigating hate crimes...

DASHOGUZ, Turkmenistan, 29 May 2013 – An OSCE-supported series of workshops on modern technologies of water resources management concluded in Dashoguz in western Turkmenistan today...

DUSHANBE, 29 May 2013- A training course for border officials from Afghanistan and Tajikistan on identification of chemicals used in illicit manufacture of drugs, and investigation of their sources started at the OSCE Border Management Staff College in Dushanbe today...

KURGAN-TYUBE, Tajikistan, 29 May 2013 – A set of public hearings on the draft Environmental Code started today in Kurgan-Tyube, facilitated by the OSCE Office in Tajikistan...

On 28 May 2013, the ninth anniversary of the murder of Montenegrin journalist Duško Jovanović, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Dunja Mijatović, urged the authorities to end the impunity against journalists’ attackers...

VIENNA, 28 May 2013 – The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Dunja Mijatović, in a letter to the U.S. Helsinki Commission today, reiterated her call for a shield law to protect journalists and their sources in light of recent disclosures of state surveillance of journalists’ conversations...

CHISINAU, 28 May 2013 – The Head of the OSCE Mission to Moldova, Ambassador Jennifer Brush, welcomed today’s meeting in Chisinau of the chief negotiations in the Transdniestrian settlement process, where they discussed, among other topics, law enforcement co-operation...

SARAJEVO, 28 May 2013 – The Acting Head of the OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Nina Suomalainen, and the OSCE Special Representative and Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings, Maria Grazia Giammarinaro, today commended the Brčko District authorities for passing amendments to the Brčko District Criminal Code regarding human trafficking that brings it in line with relevant international standards and the BiH Criminal Code...

A three-day training course on human rights education for 20 teacher trainers from Dushanbe, Sughd, Khatlon, and Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Provinces, organized by the OSCE Office in Tajikistan in co-operation with the Teachers’ Training Institute of the Ministry of Education, concluded on 25 May 2013 in Dushanbe...

OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM) Knut Vollebaek has stressed the need for governments to promote integration of society during the last official visit of his mandate to Skopje from 22 to 24 May 2013...

Recent terrorist attacks in the OSCE region show that terrorism and conditions that contribute to the spread of terrorism are likely to remain a key challenge for participating States, OSCE Secretary General Lamberto Zannier said at an international security conference in Budapest on 29 May 2013...

BISHKEK, 27 May 2013 – A public lecture by the 1994 Nobel Laureate in Economics, John Nash “Ideal Money and the Motivation of Savings and Thrift” took place today in Bishkek with OSCE support...

TIRANA, 27 May 2013 – The OSCE Presence in Albania is helping some 2,000 visually impaired people to vote in the 23 June parliamentary elections, by holding training events on the use of assistive voting devices, electoral procedures and access to voting centres. The first course started today in Tirana...

The OSCE Mission to Skopje in co-operation with the Interior Ministry holds a specialized training course for police officers in Skopje from 27 to 31 May 2013 on collecting operational intelligence data on terrorism...

Some 30 members of civil society organizations participated in a two-day training event on how to improve reporting on hate crimes, which was organized by the OSCE Mission to Skopje and the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights in Veles on 27 May 2013...

VIENNA, 27 May 2013 – The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Dunja Mijatović, expressed concern today about prison sentences handed down to three journalists in Italy for libel...

ODESA, Ukraine, 24 May 2013- The latest round of negotiations in the Transdniestrian settlement process concluded today in the Ukrainian city of Odesa with an agreement on a further confidence-building measure...

YEREVAN, 24 May, 2013- The Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group (Ambassadors Igor Popov of the Russian Federation, Jacques Faure of France, and Ian Kelly of the United States of America) and the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk, traveled to the region May 23-24 to continue their efforts to help the sides find a peaceful resolution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. They met with Azerbaijani President Aliyev in Baku on 23 May, and Armenian President Sargsian in Yerevan on 24 May...

A five-day training seminar for chief accountants of Kyrgyzstan’s detention facilities, organized by the OSCE Centre in Bishkek and the State Penitentiary Service, ended in Bishkek on 24 May 2013...

ASTANA, 24 May 2013 – Ensuring access to special social services for victims of cruel treatment, including victims of human trafficking and domestic violence, was the topic of an OSCE-supported discussion in Astana today that brought together national and international experts...

DUSHANBE, 24 May 2013 – Twenty-four officers from the Tajik Border Troops, Customs Service, State Committee of National Security and Drug Control Agency completed today a two-week training course on the criminal procedure code organized by the OSCE Office in Tajikistan...

On the occasion of this year’s World Clean Up Day, more than 140 OSCE Mission members helped tidy up public spaces throughout Kosovo, as part of the ‘Let’s Do It Kosovo!’ action on 24 May 2013...

At an event organized by the OSCE in Ashgabat on 24 May 2013, experts on questions of religious freedom legislation discussed with Turkmen officials the country’s Law on Religious Freedom and Religious Organizations...

BAKU, 24 May 2013- The OSCE Office in Baku is pleased to announce a contest for media reports highlighting the problems of human trafficking and forced labour in Azerbaijan...

SARAJEVO, 23 May 2013 – The OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s War Crimes Processing Project has been further expanded to cover two additional jurisdictions in BiH. The expansion of the project to one additional cantonal jurisdiction and one additional district jurisdiction in the RS was made possible by the recent financial contributions of the government of Germany...

The OSCE Centre in Bishkek organized a meeting on 22 May 2013 in Ala-Buka town, that focused on the planned activities for a pilot early-warning group, supervised by the State Border Service, in the Ala-Buka district of the Jalal-Abad district of Kyrgyzstan...

Ambassador Janez Lenarčič, the Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), was in Washington DC from 21 to 23 May 2013 to present the final report of the Limited Election Observation Mission for last year’s general elections in the United States...

COPENHAGEN, 23 May 2013 – The OSCE PA Special Representative on South Caucasus Joao Soares issued the following statement today regarding the arrests of former government officials in Georgia...

ALMATY, Kazakhstan, 23 May 2013 – A two-day regional forum on Internet development in Central Asia, co-organized by the OSCE Centre in Astana, started in Almaty today...

The comprehensive approach of the OSCE to contemporary security challenges and its efforts to redefine its agenda and reinvigorate conventional arms control processes were key themes of OSCE Secretary General Lamberto Zannier’s address to a high-level conference in Moscow on 23 May 2013...

STOCKHOLM, 23 May 2013 – The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Dunja Mijatović, today expressed concern over parts of Denmark’s new public information law that would restrict the public’s access to information in the legislative process...

The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) organized a roundtable for Central Asian experts responsible for developing and implementing national anti-trafficking policies on 21 and 22 May in Istanbul...

Communities-related legislation and communication between communities and state institutions were key topics of an OSCE-supported meeting of the Participatory Forum, an informal consultative body for communities, that took place in Skopje on 22 May 2013...

Speaking at the Stockholm Internet Forum on 22 May 2013, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Dunja Mijatović, stressed that technology does not change fundamental freedoms...

A two-day OSCE-supported workshop for six Kosovo municipalities representatives on inclusion of women in municipal budgeting process concluded in Elbasan, Albania, on 21 May 2013...

A four-day training workshop on biodiversity conservation started in Baku on 22 May 2013...

VIENNA, 22 May 2013 – A number of inaccuracies have been reported in the media with regard to alleged detention of OSCE personnel in Moldova/Transdniestria. No OSCE staff members have been detained. The OSCE Mission continues to operate in accordance with its mandate on both sides of the Dniester/Nistru River.

YEREVAN, 22 May 2013 – Participants at a workshop in Yerevan today discussed ways to prevent terrorists and other criminals from crossing borders with forged travel documents...

TIRANA, 21 May 2013 – A comprehensive approach, including education to promote mutual respect and understanding, is necessary to combat intolerance and discrimination, including hate crime, participants said today at the opening of a two-day OSCE conference in Tirana...

ASTANA, 21 May 2013- A regional training seminar for military officers on the practical implementation of the OSCE Vienna Document 2011 on confidence- and security-building measures began in Astana today...