Warsaw meeting discusses OSCE/ODIHR guidelines on freedom of assembly

WARSAW, 16 October 2006 - An OSCE-organized roundtable discussion of the guidelines on legislation regulating and affecting freedom of assembly took place in Warsaw today.

"The guidelines, expected to be ready early 2007, will be applicable in any legal context and serve as a practical toolkit for legislators and practitioners involved in regulating, handling and organizing assemblies," said Ambassador Christian Strohal, Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). "They will also include examples of good practice from the 56 OSCE participating States of various legislative options in the field."

"We have been working on the guidelines for the last two years in order to include as much information and as many views as possible. Now we need to add legal opinion and practitioners' insights from various backgrounds and traditions, to refine the text and to make it as relevant as possible for lawmakers and law-enforcers," he added.

Hosted by ODIHR, the event contributed to the work of the Office's Expert Panel on Freedom of Assembly, established to consolidate and finalize earlier draft guidelines on the issue. The meeting brought together participants from Belgium, Canada, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

The discussion also focused on acceptable limitations to the right to protest, new challenges to freedom of assembly, policing and dealing with unlawful and spontaneous assemblies, as well as the freedom of assembly in the context of the fight against terrorism and the role of human rights defenders and monitors/observers in protecting this fundamental right.

Three similar roundtable discussions were held this year in Georgia, Serbia and Kazakhstan.