LETTER RELEASE: OSCE Parliamentary Assembly members denounce speech-restricting policy

Today the Center for Security Policy released a letter from members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Parliamentary Assembly to Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir, Director of the OSCE’s Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). The letter expresses serious concerns about ODIHR’s pattern of policies restricting “free speech about the threat of open borders, illegal immigration, Jihadi terrorism, and the totalitarian Islamic legal system known as Sharia.”

The letter is signed by Members of Parliament Mag. Roman Haider and Christian Hafenecker, M.A. of Austria, Paul v. Podolay of Germany, and Björn Söder of Sweden.  It calls out a specific policy put in place for a meeting held on July 2-3, 2018, placing that policy in the context of a broader attack on free speech.

In the letter, these signers “demand” that ODIHR’s Director:

…either revoke this policy and permit free and open debate at all ODIHR events going forward, including specifically on immigration, Jihad, and Sharia, or admit that your own misguided policy preferences prevent you from carrying out ODIHR’s mission to expose the ways in which Participating States are falling short of their OSCE commitments with respect to freedom of expression in particular – and resign. (Emphasis added.)

The signers argue that the policy “has no legal basis.”  They also charge ODIHR put the policy in place “without consensus of Participating States, including our home nations,” rendering it “null and void” at the July 2-3 meeting and any ODIHR meeting going forward.

The letter traces the pattern of policies to targeting a Counter Jihad civil society delegation that has attended ODIHR-sponsored meetings for a decade.  That delegation, the letter says, expresses “entirely appropriate concerns with respect to OSCE Participating States’ immigration policy, the radical Islamic terrorism that policy has fostered, and attempts to shut down free speech” on both.

Calling Director Sólrún’s policies a “flagrant abuse,” the signers point out that she is:

proving this delegation’s point: radical Leftist Western bureaucrats would rather shut down the speech of those who object to uncontrolled, unfettered, unregulated immigration and the resulting terror strikes, murders, rapes, and other crimes it is now creating, than reverse these ill-advised policies.

The letter likewise notes that Director Sólrún’s moves are “a direct contradiction to OSCE policy with respect to civil society organization (CSO) participation.”  Even were it not, says the letter, her actions “would be a violation of commitments Participating States have made with respect to fundamental rights including freedom of expression.”

Finally, the letter underscores that the actions Director Sólrún is undertaking are “in direct opposition to the current policies of our parties as well as those of the current governments of [America], Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Italy, and potentially soon Germany.”

The letter’s release comes on the heels of CSP’s release of a letter by 27 civil society representatives from a dozen countries to Director Sólrún expressing concern about the same pattern of policies.

The full letter from OSCE Parliamentary Assembly members can be found below:

Letter from OSCE PA