OSCE meeting addresses challenges and good practices on freedoms of peaceful assembly and association

VIENNA, 8 November – Governments should welcome new technologies as an important means to facilitate, protect and promote the fundamental rights to peaceful assembly and association, civil society participants said at the Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting, which opened today in Vienna.

Jointly organized by the Irish OSCE Chairmanship and the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), the two-day meeting brought together state and civil society representatives from OSCE participating States and Mediterranean Partners for Co-operation with the aim to advance the full implementation of the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association, while also taking into account the role played by new technologies. 

Ambassador Janez Lenarčič, the ODIHR Director, highlighted that “human rights, including the right to assemble peacefully and the right to associate, cannot remain paper rights. All people must be able to exercise them in practice, to ensure a proper system of checks and balances, which is the basis for democracy and good and accountable governance”.

Discussions at the Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting (SHDM) focused on the challenges that still persist with regard to the implementation of both rights.  Lenarčič stressed that overly restrictive legislation for registering associations and blanket bans on assemblies at certain locations or times are inconsistent with international human rights standards and OSCE commitments

Keynote speaker Maina Kiai, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Assembly and Association, warned against restrictive state policies with regard to the exercise of freedom of peaceful assembly. He praised the work of ODIHR on monitoring assemblies, and recommended “that the Office establish a tool on the policing of assemblies that would look at training of police, monitoring them and how they are held accountable for breaches.” He further noted that at times, the Internet is used by states to further restrict the rights to peaceful assembly and association.

“The approach adopted by OSCE participating States towards peaceful assemblies can also serve as a litmus test of the overall commitment of authorities to human rights on a wider scale,” noted Martina Feeney, representative of the Irish Chairperson of the OSCE Permanent Council. She added that “the denial of the right to associate can amount to denial of participation in a democratic society” and encouraged governments to heed the recommendations resulting from the SHDM.