DUSHANBE, March 5, Asia-Plus  -- Members of the anti-torture collation, which includes lawyers, human rights activists and journalists from three Central Asia’s states – Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, have gathered n Dushanbe for training to discuss issues related to combating torture in the region.

According to the Republican Bureau on Human Rights and Rule of Law, the training is part of the Torture Prevention Project for Central Asia.   

The training participants are hearing the following reports:  “Torture and Cruel Treatment: Definition, Differential Elements ”and Problems of Wrong Understanding of the Definition of Torture”;  “Mechanisms of Protection of Human Rights in Tajikistan’s Constitution”;  “Criminal Code and Criminal-Procedural Code: Legislative Interpretation of Notion “Torture”, etc.   

Local human rights activists note that there are no any concrete statistics of scale of use of torture in the republic and neither civil society nor the government register such cases. 

“Facts and cases of use of torture have not yet been registered in the country, and therefore there is no any real information about scales of use of torture, which could be used for making any conclusions and concrete proposals and recommendations on these subject,” said Qahramon Sanginov, consultant of the “Torture Prevention Project” in Tajikistan.  “Tajikistan’s legislation provides for criminal penalty for use of torture; however, there is no any concrete article in the country’s criminal code.”