Police Reform

Annual Police Experts meeting of the OSCE member countries in Vienna.

From 19 to 21 September 2012, the Annual Police Experts Meeting of the OSCE member countries was held inVienna,Austria. This year, the meeting was devoted to the issues of Fighting Cyber-crimes.

The session was forerun with the session of the OSCE Missions’ experts, dealing with police reform issues. The Deputy Head of the Directorate of International Cooperation, National Coordinator on Police Reform issues, Zumrad Solieva, took part in the session from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of theRepublicofTajikistan. The representatives of all OSCE missions, accredited in the OSCE area:Albania,Kosovo,Bosnia and Herzegovina,Montenegro,Macedonia,Croatia,Azerbaijan,Armenia,Georgia,Moldova,Kazakhstan,Kyrgyzstan,Turkmenistan,Uzbekistan, andTajikistan, as well asUkraineparticipated in the session.

For reference: the OSCE missions and other representative offices in certain regions are the main work expression (indicator) of the organization. They are sent to countries, which according to the OSCE need assistance in implementation of political decisions. Meanwhile, the OSCE functions in all phases of a conflict development: early warning, preventive diplomacy, assistance in the conflict resolution, and post conflict rehabilitation. In general, goals and objectives of the mission are the following: to promote those political processes, which aim to prevent or settle the conflict, as well as to ensure timely awareness of the OSCE representatives on development of the situation in the given country or region. Goals, objectives and engagement of missions into the process, occurring in any country may significantly vary by emphasizing flexibility of this regulatory tool. However, for all the missions the key issues are social and democratic issues, and the issues of ensuring force of law.

Speaking in front the participants of the session, Zumrad Solieva has noted, that the Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of theRepublicofTajikistanand the OSCE on police reform issues, was ratified in February 2012, and entered into force from 25 February 2012. “It means, thatTajikistantakes upon all the commitments on the implementation of the Memorandum provisions, while the OSCE, as a contracting party, is responsible for the reforming process of local police, whose activities should be built based on modern democratic principles and human values,” noted Solieva.

Speaking of the already held on Police Reform Steering Group meetings, Solieva has marked, the Provision of the sub-working group “Promotion of Civil Society to Police Reform,” which was established on the initiative of the OSCE Office in Tajikistan, was approved on 13 July 2012. The group included the most active representatives of civil society ofTajikistan, namely prominent human rights defenders, mass media representatives, intelligentsia and different NGOs. The tasks of the sub-group for the nearest future will be development and approval of the Concept of police cooperation with civil society, conduction of independent monitoring by civil society over police activities in the fields, as well as the creation of special commission on controlling following the legitimacy and human rights protection in police. In particular, the commission will be authorized with the right to monitor and conduct internal investigations of police staff with the purpose of ensuring legitimacy and increase assurance of respect to human rights in the police activities.

After the session of the OSCE missions, the Annual Police Experts Meeting of “Fighting the Threat of Cyber-crime” took place with the participation of police experts and heads of police organizations of most OSCE member countries, specialized on countering cyber crime. The event convened more than 76 national and international experts from 37 countries. International experts made presentations on latest researches of concrete examples, demonstrating best practices of inquisition. The representatives of private sector and scientific community have discussed the possibility of building effective partnership cooperation with Criminal Justice sector. The main focus was on the improvement and enlargement of the capacity of law enforcement cooperation, involved in the investigation of all types of cyber crime, including the internet service providers and private sector.

In the opening ceremony, the representative of the acting Irish Chairperson of the OSCE, the Ambassador Eoin O’Leary has noted that cyber crime issues have been the subject of serious concerns of international community for several years. “To combat this threat effectively, the law enforcement agencies should have a possibility to respond promptly to crimes, committed in this field,” said Eoin O’Leary. He also added that “Along with providing the investigators an opportunity to attend modern professional trainings, law enforcement agencies and internet service providers should design mechanisms, ensuring effective connection and cooperation with their colleagues.”

The representative ofTajikistan, the Head of the Directorate on Combating Organized Crime of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Tajikistan, the Major General Dzhurakhon Zoirov made a speech. Zoirov had specially emphasized the issues of combating cyber terrorism, noting the necessity for strengthening of international and regional cooperation in combating cyber crime.

“Nowadays, the extremist ideas are actively functioning in the Internet space, which also serves as a communication tool and coordination while implementing extremist provocations and terrorist acts,” noted Zoirov. “Meanwhile, the extremist groups do actively use so-called “network technologies of the Internet for advocacy and recruitment of new members, and for coordination of their illegal actions,” stated Zoirov.

On the websites such as “Furgon.com,” “Islam-Deen,” “Dzhamaat Shariat,” and others the ideas of religious extremism are propagated, calls for committing terrorist acts and for overthrowing a legitimate government are published, as well as occurring terrorist acts and murders of law enforcement staff are approved. The majority of such websites are placed in foreign domains of the internet network. “Therefore, it is necessary to undertake joint measures on countering spreading of radical and extremist ideologies, including the use of Internet network and to suppress funding of international terrorist and extremist groups’ activities,” suggested Zoirov.

Zoirov’s speech brought to revival in the conference hall, and the Chairperson of the meeting Knut Dreyer, the Head of Strategic Police Matters Unit at the OSCE Secretariat, taking into account the speech of the Tajik representative, offered to conduct a regional Police Experts meeting on fighting cyber crime and cyber terrorism in the country.

Upon completion of the meeting, the experts have developed recommendations, such as joint activity of the Criminal Justice sector in co-operation with internet service providers, and with a private sector to develop reasonable requirements of data storing. Also, the assistance of law enforcement agencies to develop cyber-crime prevention programs, as well as consideration of issues on developing a strategy for fighting cyber-crime in the OSCE region and the discussion of other issues took place. During the trip, the delegation of the MIA RT has conducted a raw of important meetings with the relevant staff of the OSCE Secretariat.