Human Rights Monitoring in Police-Citizen Relations

On August 1-7, 2010 HCA Vanadzor organized a seven-day training on “Human rights monitoring in police-citizen relations” in the framework of the project “Training and networking for young human rights activists.”

The aim of the training was to teach the monitoring principles and work out the tools of  conduction. Young human rights defenders and representatives of human rights organizations from Armenia, Georgia, and South Ossetia took part in the training.

At the beginning of the training Artur Sakunts, the head of HCA Vanadzor, presented the idea of the project and the aim of the training giving importance to the young human rights defenders' contribution to building civil society.

The training was conducted by experts-trainers from Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights (Warsaw, Poland) -  Jaroslaw Kopczuk and Alina Zofia Pomorska.

During the seven- day training the participants were presented with the concept of the monitoring of police-citizen relations, its subject, objectives, the  methods and tools applicable in the sphere of oversight.

All the topics of the training were presented through lectures and practical work.

The participants studied the understandings of tolerance, human rights in general, vertical relations between a person and the authority, legal state, democracy, as well as the differences between right and freedom, special attention was paid to the right to life /e.g. the right to life and suicide, relations of the conceptions of euthanasia  and death penalty, defense of the right to life at war, etc./  The sources of human rights and freedoms and the international defense of human rights were presented, paying special attention to human rights defense in the frames of the Council of Europe and the mechanisms of the European Court of Human Rights. During the practical work the preliminary monitoring tools were worked out in working groups and then they were tested.

The participants were familiarized with  the monitoring concept and the methods and techniques of compiling information during the monitoring.  

Each participant of the training is going to conduct monitoring in their place of residence in the period of September-December 2010.

The final report, which will present the whole monitoring conducted during the four months, will be published in Armenian, Russian, and in English, and will be available on-line.

The project is implemented with the financial support of the organization National Endowment for Democracy (NED).