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Next year, Lithuania’s chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) will aim to consider the recommendations of civil society’s representatives in the field of human rights more attentively, Lithuania’s Permanent Representative to the OSCE, Ambassador Renatas Norkus said at the opening of the Civil Society Forum during the OSCE Review Conference in Astana on 26 November.

“The OSCE stands out among other international organizations mainly because it is open to non-governmental organizations,” the Ambassador said.

Lithuania’s Permanent Representative to the OSCE, Ambassador R.Norkus and Ireland’s Permanent Representative to the OSCE, Ambassador Eoin O'Leary co-chaired the Civil Society Forum. The forum was attended by about 200 representatives from non-governmental organizations, mostly from Central Asian countries.

Representatives from non-governmental organizations contributed valuable recommendations on better ways to involve civil society into the activity of the organization and called on the Governments of the OSCE participating States to implement their obligations in the fields of self-expression, freedom of assembly and association, to renew political commitment to freedom of the media, and to protect human rights activists.

 “Lithuania would like to thank OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatovic for her energy and commitment to the monitoring of the situation with the freedom of media in the OSCE space, and for her well-grounded criticism of the OSCE participating States in cases, when they did not voluntarily implement their political obligations or restricted freedom of journalists,” Ambassador R.Norkus said at the segment that focused on freedom of the media.

The Lithuanian Ambassador called on participants of the conference to identify the need of increasing pluralism of the media, especially of the new media (Internet) in the Astana document that was being drafted and to take measures to ensure the safety of journalists.

It is hoped that the document adopted at the OSCE summit in Astana will outline guidelines for organization’s activities for the next few years. The Astana document must be adopted by consensus between the OSCE participating States on 2 December.

On 26-28 November in Astana, several hundreds of representatives for Governments, civil societies and international organizations are discussing OSCE’s future activities in the fields of freedom of the media, intolerance against migrants and combating trafficking in human beings, with a particular focus on trafficking in children.

The OSCE Review Conference began in Warsaw on 30 September. Its second part was held in Vienna on 18-26 October. The Conference ends on the eve of the OSCE Summit in Astana.