News and press releases

COPENHAGEN, 13 May 2015 – The Chair of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly’s Committee on Democracy, Human Rights and Humanitarian Questions, Isabel Santos (MP, Portugal), today expressed deep concern over continuing restrictions placed on freedom of media and freedom of speech in Turkey and urged the country’s leaders to immediately abide by their commitment to upholding these liberties.

COPENHAGEN, 11 May 2015 – OSCE Parliamentary Assembly President Ilkka Kanerva (MP, Finland) today called on all political and civil society actors in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to work together to promote security and dialogue following the weekend’s violence and warned that old ethnic divisions must not be allowed to reemerge in this time of political upheaval...

LONDON, 8 May 2015 – The 7 May General Elections in the United Kingdom provided an opportunity for a thorough debate on challenges facing the country, and voters could freely cast their ballots in a strong demonstration of democratic processes, observers from the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly concluded...

COPENHAGEN, 5 May 2015 – The Chair of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly’s Committee on Democracy, Human Rights and Humanitarian Questions, Isabel Santos (MP, Portugal), today addressed government representatives from the OSCE’s 57 participating States in Vienna, urging robust action and an end to “business as usual” on issues ranging from migrants and refugees to prisoners of conscience to the Guantanamo detention facility to the situation in occupied Crimea...

COPENHAGEN, 28 April 2015 – The OSCE’s lack of a clear, international legal status and the challenges that result for its personnel, particularly during crisis situations, was the topic of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly’s latest Helsinki +40 seminar, held on 27 April in Copenhagen...

WASHINGTON, 28 April 2015 – U.S. Senator Benjamin Cardin, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly’s Special Representative on Anti-Semitism, Racism and Intolerance, met with local leaders and government officials in Paris and Copenhagen over the weekend as follow-up to the violent attacks that took place in both cities earlier this year – the siege at a Kosher Market following the Charlie Hebdo massacre and the shooting at a free speech event at Copenhagen’s main synagogue...

COPENHAGEN, 27 April 2015 – A military advance by illegal separatists in Ukraine on the city of Mariupol could have “disastrous consequences” for efforts to achieve a diplomatic solution to the crisis in the country, OSCE Parliamentary Assembly President Ilkka Kanerva (MP, Finland) said today following a meeting of the Assembly’s Bureau in the Danish Parliament...