News and press releases

MURNAU AM STAFFELSEE, Germany, 6 November 2019 – A two-day conference on confidence-building measures in the Transdniestrian settlement process concluded yesterday in Murnau am Staffelsee, Bavaria, Germany. The conference offered an informal platform for in-depth exchanges between representatives from the Republic of Moldova and Transdniestria on the ways to move forward with the outstanding priorities from the “Berlin-plus” package and beyond. Independent international experts and representatives from the mediators and observers in the 5+2 format contributed to these discussions...

For the first time, the Central Election Commission of Ukraine streamed live on the web a meeting of its members on Tuesday, 5 November 2019. This was made possible by the conference system that was provided and installed by the OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Ukraine earlier this year. The streaming was a pilot project with the Commission intending to make its meetings available online on a regular basis.

Summary Compared with the previous 24 hours, the SMM recorded fewer ceasefire violations in Donetsk region and more in Luhansk region. The SMM confirmed reports of a man and a woman who died after a grenade exploded inside their apartment in government-controlled Kurakhove. The SMM saw damage from

Protection of cultural heritage by creating cultural property databases to prevent trafficking in cultural property was the focus of the seminar for seven Montenegrin institutions on 5 November 2019 in Podgorica...

Kamensk-Shakhtinskiy, Russian Federation. The Observer Mission (OM) continues to operate 24/7 at both Border Crossing Points (BCPs). The overall number of border crossings by persons decreased at both BCPs compared to the previous week.

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.

The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Harlem Désir, welcomed today’s court decision in Turkey to release the journalists Ahmet Altan, Mehmet Altan and Nazlı Ilıcak.