Police Reform

Regular Training was conducted in the OSCE Office in Tajikistan

There was conducted a Regular Training of Trainers (ToT) within the program “Capacity building to train the staff of the MIA Academy of Tajikistan and the Higher School of State Committee on National Security (SCNS) on human rights protection in the context of counter terrorism” in the OSCE Office in Tajikistan from 21 to 24 August 2012.

The training involved the participation of the instructor staff of the MIA Academy and of the MIA Training Center and of the SCNS Higher School. 
The project “Human Rights Protection in the Counter Terrorism context” was developed by the specialists of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). ODIHR is one of the OSCE institutes, which deals with ensuring respect for human rights and fundamental human freedoms, with strengthening and protection of democratic institutes. The Helsinki document 1992 has entitled the ODIHR with a mandate on providing assistance to OSCE participating States in order “to ensure full respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, to act in line with laws, to implement the democratic principles and thereupon to create, strengthen, and protect democratic institutes, as well as to develop principles of tolerant attitude within the whole society.”
The ODIHR activity covers the whole OSCE region, and is funded by the Unified budget, approved annually by all OSCE participating States, as well as by Extra budget, participating States. The ODIHR headquarter is located in Warsaw, Poland.
According to Lucile Sengler, the Counter Terrorism and Human Rights Advisor of ODIHR, “the Office has established close cooperation with Counter Terrorism and Police Unit of the OSCE Office in Tajikistan for the project implementation within the framework of the Memorandum of Understanding, signed between the OSCE and the Government of Tajikistan in April 2011.”
The project was launched in January 2011, and is aimed at the development of a special course on human rights protection while countering terrorism, which will be integrated further into the regular curriculums of the MIA Academy, of the MIA Training Center, and of the Higher School of SCNS. “The working group, which is responsible for the course design with ODIHR support and two international experts, was established from 10 representatives of these educational institutions, - noted Sengler. “We have implemented several events to support the working group and currently, approaching the final stage. Currently, the project has been fully funded by ODIHR, and we highly appreciate our cooperation with the working group to develop the course,” said Sengler.
The OSCE expert Kuzminich Igor, who works as a Deputy Dean of law faculty of Grodnenskiy State University (Belarus), has noted that “the training is conducted within the curricula development for the MIA Academy and the Higher School of SCNS students on counter terrorism and respect for human rights issues. We are working together on the preparation of optional course on this issue, and in overall we have succeeded, taking into account the category of participants. Since counter terrorism is considered as the priority task in Tajikistan, like in Belarus, at the performance of which the issues of respect for human rights sometimes are omitted, and our course is designated for introducing future police officers with key international and national legal acts, which regulate the foundations of counter terrorism, as well as of ensuring human rights while implementing counter terrorism activities.”
According to Fridrich Schwindt, the OSCE expert, who has been conducting trainings for the MIA staff of Tajikistan for the third time, “after the tragic events of 9/11 (2001), almost all the OSCE participating States have taken enhanced security measures, which in the meantime put under the threat a number of fundamental human rights and freedoms, including the right to a fair trial, the right to personal privacy and freedom of association, as well as the right to freedom of religion and beliefs. According to internationally recognized standards in the field of human rights, the governments are obliged to take into consideration and to observe a number of critical general principles, and therefore respect for these standards must be a priority for those officials, who are involved in the implementation of antiterrorism policy. For this reason, we have been already conducting the third course for the higher educational institutions’ instructors, and hope that by next academic year the training course on ensuring human rights in the context of counter terrorism will be integrated into the curriculum of the MIA Academy and of the Higher School of SCNS,” said Mr. Schwindt.
For the past decade, international terrorism has become one of the global problems of today, destabilizing the situation in the world. At the beginning of the 21st century, there were nearly thousands of groups and organizations in more than 70 countries, which are using the methods of terror in their activities. Terrorism and extremism more and more threaten security of states and their citizens, cause significant political and economic consequences, and have a strong psychological impact on population and kill thousands of people.
The terrorist activities are escalating for the past years. Meanwhile, the terrorism scales are expanding, the nature is getting complicated, the number and sophistication of terrorist acts are increasing, and their varieties, targets and objectives are becoming more diverse.
Terrorism is a threat to the fundamentals of law and order, the respect for human rights and the peaceful resolution of disputes, and contradicts the principles and objectives of the United Nations Organization and the OSCE, including the support of international peace and security, the adoption of collective measures for threats prevention to peace and suppression of aggression, as well contribution to the human rights evolution and economic development.
The Global Antiterrorist Strategy for the purpose of reinforcing the activities of the UN Member States was adopted on 8 September 2006, and presented later on 19 September 2006. This document is a sign of the beginning of a new stage, which has become the first document – result of 192 countries approval, consolidated by common strategic approach to combat terrorism. The elaborated strategy has become the basis for an action plan, related to the analysis of conditions, facilitating to spread the terrorism; prevention and countering terrorism; measures that promote the states capacity enhancement to counter terrorism; strengthening the role.
A separate section of the Global Antiterrorism Strategy is dedicated to protection of human rights and freedoms. The Action Plan, which was implicitly adopted by all UN Member States, includes “the measures on ensuring universal respect for human rights and rule of law as a fundamental basis for counter terrorism.”
Special attention, given by states to the problem of ensuring human rights in the context of counter terrorism, stipulated by fundamental significance of the principle on respect for and observance of human rights and freedoms, both for international community as a whole and for each democratic state particularly.