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CIVIL NEWS
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority It is time to sit back and reflect.
On February 27-28 Kyiv Hosted the Second Meeting of the International Platform “Civil Solidarity”
The International Platform “Civil Solidarity” is a union of non-governmental organizations and civil groups in the OSCE area which aims are to work out common position on issues of fundamental rights in the region and influencing international mechanisms of fundamental rights’ defense in the Council of Europe, the OSCE and the UN. The founding conference of the Platform was held in Vilnius (December, 2011), before the meeting of the OSCE Ministerial Council.
The meeting, organized by the Centre for Civil Liberties, gathered more than 40 members from civil organizations. The participants discussed joint work on several areas: fundamental rights and defense of civil society in the region; human rights in connection with fight against terrorism; combating xenophobia and racism; cooperation with intergovernmental organizations; civil control over judicial system and law enforcement agencies; responding to crisis situations considering human rights.
The participants expressed their support to the work of the Committee on International Control over the Situation with Human Rights in Belarus, which meeting took place within the framework of the Platform. The experience of the International Observation Mission of the Committee will be considered as a model for missions of this kind which are to be created in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
Another issue on the agenda of the Platform was a forthcoming presidency of Ukraine in the OSCE in 2013 and possible actions of NGOs around it.
Participant of the meeting, member of the YHRM Coordinating Council, Dmitry Makarov: “After the collapse of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights there is an acute need for region-wide platform for cooperation and joint response to crisis situations. In recent years we have seen many examples of how organizations of post-Soviet space rally their efforts in the field of defense of human rights and responding to new challenges. In this connection the platform “Civil Solidarity” is a continuation of the work of the International Civil Initiative (ICI OSCE) and the Committee on International Control. We hope that cooperation will continue in wider format and will be productive in displaying solidarity for defense of certain people as well as in assistance to civil groups in common work of defending and promoting human rights”.