The work of the enlarged Bureau of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) concluded yesterday in Copenhagen.
The Assembly's Special Representative for Civil Society Participation, MP Kyriakos Hatzigiannis, briefed the members of the Bureau on its recent activities. He referred to contacts he had held in Lithuania with representatives of Belarusian civil society, who had been forced to leave their country because of the restrictions imposed on non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and activists by the Belarusian regime. He expressed his deep concern about the deprivation of basic rights and freedoms of NGOs that have remained in Belarus.
The Cypriot Special Representative underlined the importance attached to cooperation with NGOs, both by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and the OSCE CSO. He referred, in this regard, to his recent organization of a consultation involving NGO representatives to be briefed by the Rapporteurs of the three General Committees of the OSCE CSO, the Committee on Political and Security Affairs, the Committee on Economic Affairs, the Committee on Science, Technology and Environment and the Committee on Democracy, Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, regarding the draft reports and resolutions they are preparing in view of the OSCE CSO Annual Session and to make suggestions for their enrichment.
Mr. Hatzigiannis also informed the members of the Bureau of his intention to organize a discussion on the margins of the OSCE CSO Annual Session in Vancouver next July on the challenges facing Belarusian civil society in exile, as well as its intention to table an additional resolution on the role of national parliaments in supporting civil society to participate effectively in decision-making processes, and noted that guidelines on the same subject were being prepared in cooperation with the ODIHR.
(Text as sent by the House of Representatives)
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