OSCE and UNODC organize events in south Kyrgyzstan to improve public confidence in police

From 26 to 28 June 2014, the OSCE Center in Bishkek in co-operation with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) conducted a series of events in Batken, Osh and Jalal-Abad in the south of Kyrgyzstan to enhance public confidence in Kyrgyz police.

A delegation of senior officials from Bishkek, including representatives of the Interior Ministry, Ambassador Sergey Kapinos, Head of the OSCE Centre in Bishkek, the UNODC, local authorities and media representatives took part at the events.

The events included the launching of a police station in Tash-Tumshuk village in Batken province, and the laying of the foundation stone of another one in the Sputnik microdistrict in Jalal-Abad. The police station is reconstructed with the UNODC support to enhance interaction and build trust between local people and the law enforcement.

Under the Community Security Initiative of the OSCE Centre in Bishkek mobile police reception units were handed over to Batken police station and to Nooken police station in Jalal-Abad city.

The delegation also visited Bazar-Korgon centre to receive first-hand information about the progress of the Community Security Initiative project that aims at improving citizens’ access to the police and rebuilding their trust in police. The project works with all ethnic communities in the region.

“Lasting security can be ensured only when people and police work together, and this event has demonstrated tangible results as observed and assessed by our partners and people,” said Ambassador Sergey Kapinos, the Head of the OSCE Centre in Bishkek.  “We will continue supporting the Kyrgyz Government in implementing its commitment to reforming policing in Kyrgyzstan, in particular through the introduction of community-based policing principles.”

The Community Security Initiative project has been running since November 2010. It was launched after the government of Kyrgyzstan requested support from the OSCE to help the police working in a multi-ethnic environment to protect human rights and improve community-police relations.  The request followed violent inter-ethnic clashes in the southern Kyrgyz provinces of Osh and Jalal-Abad in June 2010.

Kyrgyzstan’s government requested the OSCE to expand the project activities to cover other districts in the country and extend the project’s mandate until 2015.