23rd OSCE Central Asia Media Conference
23rd OSCE Central Asia Media Conference on Promoting Public Value of the Media in Central Asia in hybrid format in Uzbekistan on 9-10 September
The 23rd annual OSCE Central Asia Media conference, organized by the Office of the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, will take place on 9 and 10 September in Uzbekistan, focusing on “Promoting Public Value of the Media in Central Asia”.
The conference will be opened by OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Teresa Ribeiro, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Uzbekistan Gayrat Fazilov, and Senior Project Officer, OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Uzbekistan Hans-Ullrich Ihm.
The Conference’s first session focuses on the values, content and strategic dilemmas public service broadcasting faces. The session will also gauge the attitude to public service broadcasting in the Central Asian participating States and Mongolia. During the second session, national experts from the region will present the main media freedom developments in their respective countries since the last regional conference held last year.
Journalists will be able to meet keynote speakers between 10:30 and 10:45 on 9 September. Registration for the press pool is required.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s event will be held in hybrid format, bringing together approximately 70 participants from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Mongolia, representing government, media, journalists’ associations, civil society and academia.
The working languages of the conference will be English and Russian with simultaneous interpretation.
On 10 September at 9:15 am, during a side event, a panel of speakers consisting of Joanna Lillis, a Kazakhstan-based journalist affiliated with the Guardian, the Economist and EurasiaNet; Nadira Masiumova, a human rights activist and co-ordinator of the Coalition for Equality in Kyrgyzstan; Gulnara Babadjanova, Director of the Training Centre for Journalists in Uzbekistan and moderator, Kristin Olson, Principal Advisor to the RFoM, will present the Russian language version of the #SOFJO Resource Guide.
This #SOFJO Resource Guide provides a series of proposed actions for ten key stakeholder groups to address gender-based online abuse of female journalists, as online harassment and abuse against women journalists has become a major hazard to the journalistic profession, with a variety of negative effects for societies. The Guide identifies a concrete way forward, and provides a list of useful resources and examples of existing measures and good practices.
The event will take place online: https://www.osce.org/representative-on-freedom-of-media/496426. A detailed agenda in English and Russian, biographies of speakers and other documents related to the conference can be accessed on the same website. (The link to the Zoom webinar https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_F2fOdfz2TZGf7ll4LUmkGw.)
For media registration, please, contact Elena Cherniavska: elena.cherniavska@osce.org, +43 676 4241 502.
For information on the side event, please contact Julia Haas: Julia.haas@osce.org.
