PART III
10
OSCE
INTERVENTIONS
The bullets below set out some of the options available:
Monitoring trials;
Visiting prisons or individuals in detention;
Visiting refugee camps or camps for internally displaced persons;
Visiting shelters for victims of domestic violence or victims of trafficking;
Visiting treatment centres for victims of torture;
Visiting offices of media outlets, political parties, religious groups, NGOs,
or others that may be suffering harassment or human rights violations;
Meeting with individual members of such groups and/or including such persons
on guest lists for mission functions;
Facilitating the attendance of such persons at OSCE Human Dimension Meetings
in Warsaw or Vienna;
Monitoring rallies of political parties or candidates who are suffering persecution
or discrimination;
Developing small-scale assistance projects to benefit specific NGOs, minority
groups, or others that may be suffering discrimination or other violations.
This list is not exhaustive. Local circumstances and the nature of an individual complaint
may dictate the extent to which any particular step is likely to be helpful in a specific case.
10.3 INVOLVEMENT OF OTHER OSCE BODIES
Another option field operations may consider for following up on individual complaints of
human rights violations is to raise the issue with other OSCE bodies. These bodies may be
able to take further action, or, in some instances, just raising the issue may be sufficient to
draw the government’s attention to an issue and prompt a response. The principal OSCE
bodies concerned with human rights in the participating States include:
The Permanent Council (PC), composed of representatives of all participating States, is the
regular body for political consideration and decision-making on all issues pertinent to the
OSCE. The PC routinely discusses human rights issues, including individual cases, as part
of its political dialogue. Heads of all OSCE field operations address the PC regularly on developments in their mission area or country, including human rights developments. These
regular reports provide an opportunity for Heads of Mission to raise directly with the par-
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