News and press releases

VIENNA, 22 November 2019 – How best to ensure the full enjoyment of the freedom of peaceful assembly by people in the OSCE area and beyond, including through participating States’ full implementation of existing OSCE commitments was the focus of the third Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting held under the auspices of Slovakia’s 2019 OSCE Chairmanship. The two-day meeting concluded today in Vienna...

WARSAW, 20 November 2019 – Thirty years after the adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the head of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) calls on governments to take greater responsibility for the wellbeing of children living in their countries, wherever they come from and however long they will be there...

The protection of people in police custody from torture and other ill-treatment, and ensuring safeguards such as access to a lawyer and effective legal representation during criminal investigations, were the focus of a regional meeting of representatives of national preventive mechanisms (NPMs) and human rights defenders active in the fight against torture, which took place in Strasbourg on 5 November 2019.

A three-day training of trainers’ course on enhancing oversight of the security sector jointly organized by ODIHR and the OSCE Secretariat concluded on 18 October 2019 in Yerevan. The capacity building event was designed to increase the human rights investigation skills of staff members of Armenia’s ombuds institution and help them train security sector personnel on human rights compliance.

WARSAW, 10 October 2019 – In line with commitments by all OSCE countries, political leaders have a responsibility to promote a discussion about abolishing the death penalty, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) said on World Day against the Death Penalty.

Understanding the root causes of, and dynamics involved in, sexual and gender-based violence in the context of detention in order to improve protection strategies was the focus of an event held on 23 September 2019 in Warsaw on the margins of the OSCE’s annual human rights conference, the Human

The continuing – and in some places increasing – exclusion of women from participating in security strategies and implementation were the focus of the annual Women’s Power Breakfast organized by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) in Warsaw on 20 September 2019, on