Two strategic statements by Osce

- Head of OSCE human rights office warns against stigmatizing Roma and Travellers

WARSAW, 30 August 2010 - Ambassador Janez Lenarcic, the Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) in Warsaw, said today he shared concerns about recent developments in France affecting Roma migrants and Travellers, and warned that such actions risked fueling intolerance and discrimination.

He said he was troubled by the approach of French authorities to the matter of the legal status of Roma migrants in the aftermath of riots by some French Travellers. The riots followed the fatal shooting by police of a member of their community.

"Recent developments in France come against the background of continuing and growing intolerance toward Roma in a number of countries, as well as insufficient efforts by many OSCE participating States to create conditions for the sustainable integration of Roma individuals and communities," said Lenarcic.

He stressed that "implicating the Roma and Travellers collectively in criminal activities based on individual cases could only contribute to stigmatizing these communities". He added that official statements by the French authorities on the policy of evicting Roma from illegal settlements and offering them financial incentives to return to their country of origin raised questions as to whether individual migrants’ rights to due process are being respected.

Lenarcic emphasized that public officials needed to be especially sensitive to the risk that statements about Roma could further encourage anti-Roma public discourse and prejudice, which could fuel intolerance, discrimination and even acts of violence against members of these communities.

As an OSCE participating State, France has undertaken commitments, outlined in the OSCE Action Plan on Improving the Situation of Roma and Sinti within the OSCE Area, to implement concrete measures to eradicate discrimination against Roma and Sinti, and ensure that they are able to play a full and equal part in the societies in which they live.

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- Hungarian media legislation severely contradicts international standards of media freedom, says OSCE media freedom representative

VIENNA, 7 September 2010 - Dunja Mijatovic, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, announced today that she has presented the Hungarian Government with an expert legal analysis of recently adopted laws and draft legislation on media and telecommunications, and asked that the Government reconsider and amend the package.

"The media package is cause for very serious concern," wrote Mijatovic in a letter to Foreign Minister Janos Martonyi. "If left unchanged, it would seriously restrict media pluralism, curb the independence of the press, abolish the autonomy of public-service media and impose a chilling effect on freedom of expression and public debate, all essential for democracy."

The expert legal review was commissioned by the office of the Representative and prepared by Karol Jakubowicz, one of Europe’s most prominent media scholars. It examines both the already adopted laws of the package, as well as Bill 363 on content regulation which is scheduled to be voted on by Parliament in September, in light of OSCE, Council of Europe and European Union standards on free expression.

"I ask Parliament and the Government to initiate an urgent revision of the media package and take into consideration the detailed recommendations of the analysis when rewriting the legislation. My Office stands ready to assist the authorities in these efforts at every step of this process," Mijatovic said.

She said that the analysis underlined the concerns the OSCE media freedom representative already voiced in June and July: "The changes put into place a new legal, institutional and regulatory framework for media regulation and supervision that can be easily misused for political purposes and that could contradict the principle of the separation of powers and of the checks and balances typical of liberal democracies. Public-service media are especially at risk of direct political control."

"The study also warns that the current legislative attempt mainly extends the traditional regulatory framework to the new media, including most Internet content originating in Hungary as well as content hosted abroad but of relevance to Hungarian users, which is widely regarded as inappropriate, and dangerous for free social communication on the Internet."

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