OSCE Centre in Ashgabat organizes working visit to Spain on penitentiary system

ASHGABAT, 29 September 2011 – Representatives from Turkmenistan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Presidential Administration discussed various aspects related to prison management during a working visit to Spain that concluded in Madrid today.

The four-day visit was organized by the OSCE Centre in Ashgabat in co-operation with the General Secretariat of Penitentiary Institutions in Spain.

The delegation members had an opportunity to visit a penitentiary institution in Madrid, a social integration centre and a special facility for female inmates with small children, where they familiarized themselves with the organization, infrastructure and management of prisons and available health care and rehabilitation programmes for inmates.

“We are very pleased to share our experience with our colleagues from Turkmenistan. In our penitentiary system, special importance is attached both to security as well as to providing inmates with an opportunity to engage in constructive activities and education and training programmes which assist the education of the inmate and the development of his or her personality, thus increasing their chances to reintegrate into society upon completion of their sentences,” said Virgilio Valero, the General Director of Territorial Co-ordination and Open Environment at the General Secretariat of Penitentiary Institutions in Spain.

The representatives from Turkmenistan also had meetings with, among others, the Office of the Ombudsman, a Penitentiary Judge, the State Society for Penitentiary Infrastructures and Equipment, the Centre for Penitentiary Studies and non-governmental organizations, all of them dealing with different aspects of the penitentiary system. The meetings addressed a wide range of issues, including the legal framework of the Spanish prison system, rehabilitation and reintegration programmes as well as social activities available to inmates in the prisons, mechanisms available to protect and promote the rights of inmates, recruitment and training of prison staff and alternative measures to imprisonment.

The visit is part of a programme of co-operation between the OSCE Centre in Ashgabat and the Government of Turkmenistan aimed at promoting international standards in the penitentiary system.