DUSHANBE, February 19, 2011, Asia-Plus — The Dushanbe Office of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) jointly with local human rights activists initiate discussions on the strategy of cooperation against the practice of torture in the country.
According to the IWPR Dushanbe Office, two consultative meetings with participation of lawyers and representatives of human rights organizations and media outlets are expected to take place this month.
The events are held by the IWPR Dushanbe Office in cooperation with two human rights organizations, namely; Independent Human Rights Center (Sergey Romanov) and Nota Bene (Nigina Bahriyeva).
“The main objective of these consultative meetings is in acquainting journalist community with instruments for correct coverage of issues related to rights of prison inmates and persons under investigation,” the IWPR Dushanbe Office director Abdumalik Qodirov said.
The first consultative meeting is scheduled to take place in Khujand on February 21 and the second one is expected to take place in Dushanbe on February 25.
“We want to discuss problems facing lawyers during defending victims of torture and share experience on this subject,” said the Nota Bene chairperson Nigina Bahriyeva, “We will also consider how lawyer and human rights activists could coordinate their activities to defend concrete persons and tackle the system problems.”
Local experts say consider that despite a number of prosecutions, the legal system in Tajikistan is still failing to adequately address the continuing use of torture in detention. According to them, courts continue to base convictions on confessions obtained under duress, and victims are reluctant to lodge complaints. Experts consider that one of reasons for this impunity is current legislation, which contains an unclear definition of torture.
We will recall that in a statement released on June 26, 2010 to mark International Day in Support of Torture Victims, Tajikistan’s Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law (BHR) recommended that the authorities introduce a separate legal article defining torture as a specific crime and establish effective mechanisms for investigating every complaint.
