Europe
Documents & Texts from the Washington File
05 November 2009
U.S. Statement to OSCE on Tolerance and Non-Discrimination
Remarks by Chargé d’Affaires Fuller to the Permanent Council
in Vienna
(begin transcript)
United States Mission to the OSCE
Response to the Special Representatives on Tolerance and Non-Discrimination
As delivered by Chargé d’Affaires Carol Fuller
to the Permanent Council, Vienna
November 5, 2009
It is indeed a pleasure for the United States to welcome the Chairmanship’s
Personal Representatives for Tolerance, Ambassador Adil Akhmetov, Mr. Mario
Mauro and Rabbi Andrew Baker to the Permanent Council and thank them for their
valuable work to combat intolerance and discrimination across the OSCE region.
The United States strongly supports the efforts of the Personal Representatives.
Their work is at the very heart of the OSCE’s principles and commitments.
The promotion of tolerance, understanding and non-discrimination empowers healthy
societies and fosters respect among different communities, in turn allowing
states to become more stable, secure and prosperous.
We are honored that on October 13 and 14, the Personal Representatives chose
the United States for their first joint country visit. We assured them of our
government’s commitment to combating hate crimes and the intolerance
that underlie them across our country. While in Washington, the Representatives
had full and complete access to meet with anyone they wished and they had a
full program.
Madam Chairwoman, we continue to be concerned about the increase in hate crimes
throughout the OSCE region. We urge redoubled efforts to combat discrimination
based on religion, race, gender, national origin, sexual orientation, gender
identity, or disability and to better position law enforcement to identify
and prosecute hate crimes. We support improved collection of disaggregated,
specific hate crime statistics and the enactment and implementation of hate
crime legislation.
We strongly encourage the incoming Chairmanship to continue the mandate of
the Personal Representatives for Tolerance – and we know it is the full
intention of the government of Kazakhstan to do so. The United States supports
the proposal for a high-level conference on tolerance, within the framework
of a robust human dimension program in 2010.
The United States will continue to support the Chairmanship’s Personal
Representatives, both politically and financially. We expect the Representatives
will continue their work to encourage tolerance and non-discrimination throughout
the OSCE area and promote dialogue among governments and within societies on
how best to accommodate minority communities and protect each individual’s
fundamental rights and freedoms. We urge the Personal Representatives to draw
attention to positive steps undertaken by countries to promote inter-religious
harmony, protection of minorities, tolerance education and interfaith dialogue,
while also shining light on governments’ failures to counteract negative
trends leading to an increase in intolerance, discrimination or violent manifestations
of hate. We at the same time also encourage the Personal Representatives to
extend their work across the OSCE region. We welcome their constructive input
on our own country, and urge other participating States to do the same.
We thank the Personal Representatives for their presentations today and we
look forward to the release of the joint country report on their recent visit
to the United States.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
(end transcript)
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