OSCE Office trains Azerbaijani police on managing public gatherings

BAKU, 16 April 2012 – Today the OSCE Office in Baku starts a two-week training course for Azerbaijani police and internal troops on public assembly management.

German police trainers from Schleswig-Holstein will share their experience with their Azerbaijani counterparts on how to manage public gatherings in line with OSCE commitments and other international standards and human rights practices.

“Freedom of peaceful assembly is an important right that all people must enjoy, and it is guaranteed by the constitution of Azerbaijan,” said John MacGregor, the Head of the Politico-Military Unit at the OSCE Office in Baku. “The OSCE supports the Azerbaijani police to manage public gatherings in a manner that is appropriately restrained, measured, proportional, and uses a minimum amount of force with the ultimate goal to secure the safety of all people.”

The training course will address the role of the police in maintaining public order and security during public manifestations, respect and protection of human dignity, standards for the handling of detainees, crowd riot control, de-escalation strategies and other issues.   The course includes theoretical and practical exercises, discussions, working group activities as well as practical demonstrations.

The OSCE Office in Baku launched its training programme at Azerbaijan’s urban and regional police stations on ensuring the exercise of freedom of peaceful assembly in 2005. Since then, the Office has supported training activities for police across Azerbaijan on the appropriate use of non-violent methods of crowd control, and has also organized study tours to various OSCE participating States to facilitate exchange of best practices on this theme. To date, the Office has provided professional training for 1,200 internal troops representatives, 750 police staff, as well as over 60 representatives of the Rapid Reaction Team.