Paris- December 7, 2010 - As the OSCE Conference closed its doors in Astana on December 2nd 2010, FIDH and its member organisations from Eastern Europe and Central Asia urge the OSCE member States to strengthen the implementation of their founding principles related to its Human dimension, and implement a road-map of human rights reforms which civil society has presented to them.
Indeed, ahead of the Astana conference, FIDH member organisations participated in an alternative civil society conference bringing together 200 NGOs. It issued a 15-page document (attached) of recommendations on the protection of fundamental freedoms, on the strengthening of OSCE mechanisms on crisis situations, and specific recommendations throughout Central Asia.
FIDH welcomes the declarations of the Lithuanian Ambassador to the OSCE, who will ensure the next Presidency of the institution in 2011 and asserted during the alternative conference that cooperation between OSCE institutions and civil society would be strengthened under their Presidency. This is a sign of potential improvement, in an environment where human rights defenders throughout OSCE countries remain to a large extent endangered. FIDH Vice President Aliaksandr Bialiatski, who participated in the Conference, nevertheless regretted that "the outgoing Presidency of the OSCE, the government of Kazakhstan, failed to uphold the human rights principles governing OSCE, which they had announced to strengthen, thus challenging the goals and merits of the institution".
Website of the civil society alternative conference: http://parallelosceconference.org/