Police Reform

Tajikistan prepares for next Report to the ODIHR/OSCE on human dimension

The Sixth OSCE Annual Preparatory Meeting on Human Dimension with participation of the representatives from governmental structures and civil society of Tajikistanwas conducted in the state complex “Kokhi Vahdat” (Dushanbe) from 2 to 3 July 2012.

More than 120 participants, including representatives from the Parliament, the Supreme Court, the General Prosecutor’s Office, and the Central Commission for Elections and Referenda, from different ministries and agencies, as well as from NGOs and political parties, participated in the meeting.

The meeting, which is conducted annually on the eve of the annual OSCE Meeting on human dimension inWarsaw, serves as an open forum for reviewing urgent issues in the field of human rights and the rule of law. The agenda of the meeting this year covered such important issues, as freedom of speech and new mass media, freedom from torture, freedom of speech and expression, freedom of religion, access to justice, human rights and counter terrorism, property rights and forced resettlement, democratic election standards and participation of youth in political life.

There was practically a lively discussion on each issue in the hall. For example, referring to the access to justice, the practicing attorney Abdukayum Yusupov has noted the discrepancy between the court records and real events, which occur in the course of a trial. “In practice, the judges do not allow to use any audio equipment, especially for attorneys,” said Yusupov. The Director of theIndependentCenterfor Human Rights Protection Sergey Romanov supported him, noting that “according to the Article 273 Section 5 of the CPC of Tajikistan, an audio recording is allowed during the court trial; however judges interpret this standard in their own way, by not allowing the use of an audio recorder.” The representative of the Ministry of Justice ofTajikistan, Abubakr Inomov, dwelled upon such issue, as providing of legal aid by the Government. “The legislation of theRepublicofTajikistanenvisages a real opportunity of providing free legal aid, mainly on criminal cases, at the expense of the Government. The current legislation does not fully enable poor people to obtain a lawyer representation on civil cases in the court trials,” stated Mr. Inomov.

In his speech during the section, dedicated to human rights in the context of counter terrorism, the MIA RT representative Mr. Saidov outlined that “it is necessary to identify in advance terrorist groups’ seat of origin in order to prevent terrorist acts, and for this purpose, it is essential to establish a Regional Intergovernmental Experts Committee according to European analogue of International Experts Committee.” According to him, “106 crimes of a terrorist nature had been committed since 1995 on theterritoryofTajikistan, but no terrorist act was planned within the country, all of them were organized outside the country, but committed in the country.”

According to human rights activists, a lot of issues were raised due to violation of presumption of innocence principles by investigating and law enforcement agencies while detaining persons, accused in terrorism and extremism. “Nobody encourages terrorists. However, nobody on the international level still has given any clear definition of the term “terrorism”. For the past years, legal practice shows that the term is used by investigating agencies towards religious people, such people can be labeled as terrorists anytime,” said the attorney Faizinisso Vokhidova.

The Head of Public Foundation “Nota Bene” Ms. Nigina Bakhrieva summarized recommendations on the issues of freedom from torture. Amongst them there is a call for the authorities on political level to acknowledge “zero tolerance” not only against torture, but against all forms of ill treatment, as well as the establishment of independent monitoring institute with involvement of all civil society institutes, etc.

As a result of the meeting, recommendations on implementation of the commitments by all sides in the field of human dimension were adopted by participants. The meeting has shown that sides have both points of contacts and controversial points. Meanwhile, as it was noted by the Head of the OSCE Office inTajikistanMr. Ivar Vikki, in his speech “active discussions during the meeting conducted this year reflect a common will of the government and civil society representatives, aimed at taking measures for improving both legal foundation for respect of human rights and practical implementation of the legislation.”

According to the Head of Directorate for Constitutional Guarantees of Citizens' Rights of the Executive Office of the President of theRepublicofTajikistanMr. Muzaffar Ashurov, the recommendations on key issues in the field of human rights, prepared as a result of the meeting, will not be left without attention. “They will assist us in the development of an effective policy for improving the legal basis to protect human rights,” added Mr. Ashurov.

For reference: Office for Democratic Institutes and Human Rights (ODIHR) is one of the OSCE institutes. It deals with the issues of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, with reinforcement and protection of democratic institutes. Headquarter of ODIHR is located in Warsaw, Poland.

The ODIHR activities cover the whole OSCE space and, are funded by unified budget, which is accepted by all OSCE participating States, as well as by extra budgetary contributions of participating States.

ODIHR was founded in 1990 as the Office on freedom of elections. The Helsinki document of 1992 entitled the ODIHR with the mandate on providing assistance to OSCE participating States with the purpose of “ensuring full respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, to act legitimately, to implement the democracy principles and for this purpose, to create, strengthen, and protect democratic institutes, as well as to develop the principles of tolerant attitude throughout the whole society.”