From November 8-9th members of the Global Justice Clinic will be traveling to Vienna to take part in the “Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting on Freedom of Assembly and Association”, where they will be delivering a presentation on their recent report, Suppressing Protest: Human Rights Violations in the US Response to Occupy Wall Street.  Professor Sarah Knuckey will also be providing the introductory remarks at a panel on November 7th on “Freedom of Assembly in the OSCE Region: Facing New Challenges and Examining Options for Dialogue and the Role of New Technologies”.

SCHEDULE OF SIDE EVENTS

to take place during the

SUPPLEMENTARY HUMAN DIMENSION MEETING ON

Freedom of Assembly and Association

8 – 9 November 2012

Vienna, Hofburg

The Helsinki Document of 1992 (Chapter IV) called for increasing the openness of OSCE  activities and expanding the role of NGOs. In particular, in paragraph (15) of Chapter IV the  participating States decided to facilitate during OSCE meetings informal discussion meetings  between representatives of participating States and of NGOs, and to provide encouragement to  NGOs organizing seminars on OSCE-related issues. In line with this decision, NGOs,  governments, and other participants are encouraged to organize side meetings on relevant

issues of their choice.  The side events below have been organized and scheduled exclusively at the request of  participants of the Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting. The descriptions have been  provided by the organizers. They have been lightly edited by ODIHR for language but not for  content. Responsibility for the content remains with the organizers. Neither the text below nor  the events themselves necessarily reflect the views of the OSCE.

SIDE EVENT: “Suppressing Protest: Human Rights Violations in the U.S. Response to Occupy Wall Street” 

As submitted by the organizers

Hofburg, Vienna

Thursday, 8 November

Time: 13.00 – 15.00

Venue: Segmentgalerie I

Title: Suppressing Protest: Human Rights Violations in the U.S. Response to Occupy Wall Street

Convenor: Global Justice Clinic (New York University School of Law)

Language: English

Summary: This side event will present the findings of an eight‐month investigation into the  US Government response to the Occupy Wall Street protests. The investigation, led by human  rights law experts, found extensive human rights violations by US authorities in New York  City of assembly rights, since the start of Occupy Wall Street in September 2011. The report  draws heavily on the assembly rights standards promoted by the OSCE, and provides a model  of the domestic application of the OSCE’s Guidelines on Freedom of Peaceful Assembly. The  report documents excessive police force, obstruction of press freedoms, pervasive surveillance,  unjustified closure of public space, arbitrary arrests, and transparency and accountability  failures. Together, these violations worked to stifle the expression of peaceful dissent in the  US. The report calls for major reforms to protest policies, and for urgent accountability

measures to be taken. During this side event, authors of the report will discuss its findings, how  they undertook investigations, applied the OSCE’s Guidelines, and broader lessons for civil  society work documenting and seeking to prevent assembly rights violations.