News and press releases

SKOPJE, 14 November 2023 – The OSCE expert network, which will serve as a point of consultation and dialogue on the three dimensions of the OSCE, was launched in Skopje by the OSCE 2023 Chairpersonship of North Macedonia and the OSCE Secretariat.

OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities Kairat Abdrakhmanov visited Norway from 6 to 10 November 2023.

WARSAW, 13 November 2023 – Hate crimes have been rising in many OSCE countries over the last month, severely impacting the security of Jewish and Muslim communities and threatening to undermine the stability of our societies, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) said today.

Sarajevo, 10 November 2023- With less than 11 months until the 2024 Local Elections scheduled for next October, the Head of the OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ambassador Brian Aggeler, notes that authorities in BiH have so far failed to bring the BiH Election Law in line with international standards and best practices for democratic elections. The necessary amendments have been clearly and repeatedly enumerated and recommended, also after the last general elections held in October 2022, by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), including in its Election Observation Mission Final Report issued in February 2023, and by the Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) and European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission).

The OSCE Secretariat Transnational Threats Department and United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT) delivered the 7th Passenger Data Exchange Seminar as a back-to back event with the 3rd in-person meeting of the Eastern European Informal Working Group on Passenger Data (EE IWG) on 8-10 November 2023.

From 6 to 11 November, the OSCE Transnational Threats Department (TNTD) and the OSCE Centre in Ashgabat delivered the second part of an introductory course on digital forensics for law enforcement representatives from Turkmenistan.

On November 10, 2023, within the framework of the implementation of the Anti-Drug Programme by the Cabinet of Ministers of the Kyrgyz Republic, the Service for Combating Illicit Drug Trafficking of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MoI) of the Kyrgyz Republic, in collaboration with the OSCE Programme Office in Bishkek, convened a roundtable discussion for students of the Faculty of Law at the Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University. The focal theme of the discussion was "Prevention of Drug Use Among Young People."