OSCE Centre-supported workshop strengthens Kyrgyz civil society representatives' capacity for prevention of torture in penitentiary institutions

OSH, Kyrgyzstan, 30 March 2009 - An OSCE-supported workshop for some 30 human rights defenders and civil society representatives on enhanced methodologies to monitor prisons and other places of deprivation of liberty started in Osh today.

The two-day workshop supported by the OSCE Centre in Bishkek's Field Office in Osh aims to develop sustainable professional co-operation between civil society and authorities. It has both a countrywide and regional focus, specifically on the Jalal-Abad and Osh Provinces.

The workshop is held by the Jalal-Abad based non-governmental organization Spravedlivost and local branches of the Kyrgyz Ombudsman's Office. The training is an essential component of an OSCE Centre project to support penitentiary system reform and promote human rights awareness in the Osh, Jalal-Abad and Batken provinces.

"The project, aimed to reinvigorate co-operation among the authorities, the OSCE and local human rights' NGOs, reflects the need for enhancing general human rights protection as well as prevention of torture in the detention facilities and penitentiary institutions in the region," said Dimitri Manjavidze, the Human Dimension Officer at the OSCE Osh Field Office.

Valentina Gritsenko, Chair of Spravedlivost, added: "Human rights activists and the Office of the Kyrgyz Ombudsman are exploring ways to set up a National Preventive Mechanism, as required by the Optional Protocol to the U.N. Convention against Torture. The public monitoring groups established and trained within the project will contribute to the roll-out and sustainable work of such a mechanism in Kyrgyzstan's southern regions".

The OSCE project, developed since 2006, is being implemented by the OSCE Centre in co-operation with the State Prison Service, the provincial departments of the Interior Ministry and a grouping of local human rights NGOs.