OSCE promotes dialogue on human rights mechanisms in Kazakhstan

KARAGANDA, Kazakhstan, 22 September 2011 – An OSCE-supported discussion on strengthening co-operation between the Ombudsman, state institutions and civil society was organized in Karaganda today.

The roundtable meeting, organized by the OSCE Centre in Astana in co-operation with Kazakhstan’s Ombudsman Institution is the first of a series of regional awareness-raising activities. More than 40 participants, including representatives of central state institutions, local municipal authorities, and international and non-governmental organizations from Astana, Pavlodar and Karaganda, met to identify spheres of potential co-operation at the regional level.

Vyacheslav Kalyuzhnyy, the Head of Office of the Ombudsman Institution, said: “We attach great importance to work with local state institutions and non-governmental organizations due to the absence of regional representations of the Ombudsman’s Office. We intend to co-operate with regional authorities in the sphere of legal education and awareness-raising through series of workshops and roundtables, similar to today’s event.”

Jeannette Kloetzer, the Deputy Head of the OSCE Centre in Astana, added: “The Ombudsman Institution in Kazakhstan has an important role to play in ensuring that  OSCE commitments on human rights and fundamental freedoms are met. In this respect the OSCE Centre in Astana supports dialogue and interaction between governmental authorities, democratic institutions and civil society in both the capital and the regions.”

Participants also discussed visits the day before by a group of officials and NGOs headed by the Ombudsman Institution staff to Karaganda’s social closed institutions such as an orphanage for disabled children, a mental asylum and a pre-trial detention centre. They highlighted the need to consolidate joint efforts and foster interaction of the Ombudsman Institution with central and local state agencies and NGOs, in order to address human rights issues in the regions of Kazakhstan.

The roundtable is part of the project ‘Support to the National Human Rights Commissioner (Ombudsman) of the Republic of Kazakhstan’, implemented with the support of the governments of Kazakhstan, Denmark and Germany.