Human Rights OSCE Participants going over practical aspects at organizing peaceful assemblies at a freedom of assembly training programme in Yerevan in September 2008. patterns of violations affecting human rights defenders in the OSCE area, as well as a number of good practices for protecting these people and organizations and creating an enabling environment for their work. The issues and practices highlighted in the report inform the elaboration of programmes to help participating States comply with their OSCE human dimension commitments. An important part of the Focal Point’s work involves furthering the implementation of ODIHR’s Guidelines on Freedom of Peaceful Assembly. In co-operation with the OSCE Mission to Moldova and the Resource Center of Moldovan Non-Governmental Organisations for Human Rights (CReDO), ODIHR continued to build the capacity of human rights defenders in the country to improve their knowledge of human rights standards and skills in advocacy, monitoring and strategy formulation, as well as their general capacity to monitor and report on public assemblies. For six months, ending in May, 20 trained monitors observed 148 assemblies, as well as monitoring judicial proceedings and amendments to legislation. The monitors’ findings were presented to the relevant authorities and NGOs, after which they were published in the report Monitoring Freedom of Assembly Policies in the Republic of Moldova, which was finalized in January 2009. This project was successful in engaging police and municipal authorities raise awareness and improve standards related to freedom of assembly issues. The findings and recommendations of this project were presented in September and October at six regional roundtables organized by the Centre for Human Rights of Moldova, with ODIHR support. The roundtables provided a forum for the enhancement of dialogue among human rights defenders, regional ombudsman offices, police representatives and regional administrations on ways to strengthen the protection and promotion of freedom of assembly at the national and local levels. Following the positive results in Moldova, Armenia was identified as the second country in which to conduct a freedom of assembly capacity building project. ODIHR, in cooperation with the OSCE Office in Yerevan, the Council of Europe and its implementing partner, the Helsinki Committee of Armenia, an NGO, held a four-day training session in September. The session in Yerevan was attended by 23 human rights activists, who then launched a project to monitor the holding of public assemblies across the country for a period of six months. Annual Report 2008 39