Journalists' Associations Against Exclusion of Media at OSCE Parliamentary Assembly
In response to plans by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) that media representatives would not be permitted to attend the winter session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (PA) at the Hofburg in Vienna, the Association of European Journalists (AEJ) and the Association of Foreign Press in Vienna objected.
A press ban had been announced by the OSCE for the winter session of the Parliamentary Assembly at the Hofburg in Vienna. / Picture: © OSCE / Sarah Crozier
For reasons of logistics and security, the OSCE had announced that journalists would not be allowed into the winter session of the Parliamentary Assembly at the Hofburg in Vienna.
A live stream of the meeting will be available on YouTube and Facebook, according to PA press officer Nat Parry. According to Parry, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly has traditionally allowed journalists to attend its meetings, but due to a confluence of circumstances, this will not be possible this year.
Media representatives warned that the OSCE's plans to keep journalists away from this week's OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (PA) in Vienna's Hofburg would "severely impair the freedom of independent reporting," according to ORF. The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Teresa Ribeiro, also said, "An institution like the OSCE, in particular, should avoid anything that appears to limit or hinder independent reporting."
"We hear that it is planned to lock journalists out of the OSCE premises in the Hofburg on these two days, not to allow them access to the rooms where the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly is meeting, and to have the Assembly broadcast to the outside world only via live stream from cameras under the OSCE's disposal," AEJ and the Foreign Press Association said, according to ORF.
As a result, reporters from around the world would be unable to address conference participants during the meeting itself, since this would only be possible outside the assembly area, the two journalists' associations said, according to ORF. As a result, the OSCE's media representative was asked to "act within the scope of your competence this time in your organization."