In Warsaw, Lithuania and its partners organized a discussion on the threat of propaganda
The Human Dimension Implementation Meeting of OSCE participating States kicked off on 19 September in Warsaw. During the meeting, Lithuania together with international partners and non-governmental organizations organized a discussion about the threat of Russian propaganda and its impact on society.
The event was organized in cooperation with delegations of the Czech Republic, Poland, Denmark, the Netherlands, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Norway, Ukraine, Georgia, Latvia, Estonia, and Sweden, and Freedom House. The discussion aims to coordinate actions and to share good practices in the fight against Russian war propaganda, as well as to make concrete recommendations for a possible decision of the OSCE Ministerial Council on combating war propaganda.
During the discussion that was initiated by Lithuania and held on the first day of the meeting, the participants discussed impacts of the current Kremlin propaganda on Russian society and Western countries. Media and politics experts from Vilnius University, Russian Language News Exchange, a think tank and research centre “The Carnegie Moscow Centre”, and the non-governmental organization “Reporters Without Borders Austria” highlighted the danger that was posed by war propaganda and disinformation to media freedom and democracy, also stressed that in the fight against propaganda it was necessary for the OSCE participating States to invest in the education of young people, and to strengthen media independence.
The issue of the fight against propaganda has become particularly important in recent years in the context of Russian aggression against Ukraine. Thanks to joint efforts of the Nordic and Baltic countries, last year it was included into the political agenda of the OSCE for the first time in the organisation’s history. Therefore, the OSCE’s Representative on Freedom of the Media has prepared specific recommendations for combating propaganda, which were presented in Lithuania this year.
The Human Dimension Implementation Meeting of OSCE participating States will take place in Warsaw from 19 to 30 September. It is attended by 1,300 representatives from 57 OSCE participating States, Partners for Co-operation, OSCE Secretariat and other structures, civil society, and international organizations, who will discuss freedom of expression, free media and information, freedom of movement and other fundamental freedoms, migration, tolerance and ways to strengthen it, the rule of law, gender equality and the fight against trafficking in human beings. This year, the agenda of the meeting includes special debate on human rights violations in Crimea after it was annexed by Russia and in eastern Ukraine, where Russian aggression continues.
The meeting in Warsaw is Europe’s largest human rights and democracy conference. It is organized every year by the OSCE as a platform for participants to take stock of the implementation of the OSCE human dimension commitments, discuss associated challenges, share good practices and make recommendations for further improvement.
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