OSCE Office in Tajikistan supports intensive human rights course for university students

DUSHANBE, 29 July 2009 - Sixteen students majoring in humanities at universities across Tajikistan completed an eight-day, OSCE Office-supported intensive course on the principles of human rights and international public law today.

The course, which was held in the resort town of Almasi, aimed to raise students' awareness of civic, political and human rights issues and Tajikistan's international commitments, in particular as a UN member and OSCE participating State.

"The intensive training in human rights for university students is among the OSCE Office's most successful activities in Tajikistan, not least because the course offers students interesting and varied material on human rights challenges and provides an atmosphere encouraging discussion and debate," said Ambassador Vladimir Pryakhin, the Head of the OSCE Office. "Knowledge of human rights and especially one's own rights is a necessary step to enhance participating States' capacity in line with OSCE commitments."

This is the ninth year that the OSCE Office has funded the course. The eight male and eight female humanities students who graduated today are among more than 50 law, humanities and economic students who were selected through a competition held by Tajik non-governmental organization the Bureau of Human Rights and Rule of Law and supported by the OSCE Office. Each group of students will receive the same training, with the course for the economics students scheduled to begin on 30 July.

The final part of the course will comprise a student conference in December, where the best student research reports from all majors on human rights-related topics will be presented.

As in 2008, the OSCE Office intends to send at least one of the students as part of the civil society and Government delegation from Tajikistan which will take part in the OSCE's Human Dimension Implementation Meeting, which will be start in Warsaw at the end of September.

"The young people participating in this training have received an excellent introduction to human rights and its related international mechanisms, and the OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting will provide an additional opportunity to see how this works in practice," said Pryakhin.