WORKSHOP DEDICATED TO ATTAMPT OF IMPLEMENTATION OF FACULTATIVE RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS OF CONVENTION AGAINST TORTURE STARTS IN YEREVAN
Noyan Tapan
Nov 13 2007
Yerevan, November 13, Noyan Tapan. On November 12 a two-day workshop
dedicated to the problems of a productive attampt of implementation of
the facultative record of proceedings of the Convention against
Torture, which was organized by the Open Society Institute
and the Helsinki Committees of Armenia and Bulgaria, started in
Yerevan. Armenia ratified this record of proceedings in 2006, assuming
the responsibility for developing national preventive mechanisms
for its implementation. It is envisaged to introduce suggestions
concerning the preventive mechanisms of the record of proceedings
based on the results of the workshop to the authorities of Armenia.
Krassimir Kanev, the Director of the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee,
mentioned that places of imprisonment are more open in front of society
in Armenia than in many European countries, including Switzerland,
the founding country of the record of proceedings.
Silvia Pogolsa, the Human Rights Officer of the OSCE Office in
Yerevan, told journalists that preventive mechanisms usually work
in corresponding institutions due to the monitoring conducted by
non-governmental organizations (those institutions, including places
of imprisonment, are regarded as closed in certain countries). In this
respect, she attached imprortance to the holding of a monitoring in
the places of imprisonment of the Ministry of Justice and the places
of preliminary detention of the police. In her words, it is necessary
that orphanages, old-aged pensioner’s homes, psychiatrical hospitals
as well should be open. In the estimation of the OSCE Officer, this
process has a positive start and course in Armenia.