DUSHANBE, April 15, 2014 Asia-Plus -- With support from the European Union the Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR) has held a training workshop on Human Rights Activists – Media Cooperation in Qurghon Teppa, the capital of Khatlon province.

According to the Delegation of the European Union to Tajikistan, the representative office of the Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR) in Tajikistan conducted the training workshop in Qurghon Teppa on April 11-12.

Fifteen young Tajik journalists and human rights activists from the city of Qurghon Teppa and the districts of Shahritous, Qubodiyon, and Qumsangir of Khatlon province participated in the workshop.

Participants reportedly learned how to jointly develop analytical reports on human rights violations and acquired skills in interviewing victims, as well as knowledge of the legal aspects of human rights violations.

Rukhshona Olimova, Access to Information and Services Program Coordinator at OSI Tajikistan, and Sergey Romanov, Head of the Independent Center for Protection of Human Rights, led the training workshop.

IWPR has already conducted this training in the cities of Dushanbe, Khujand, and Qurghon Teppa.  It also plans to train young journalists on the same topic in other regional centers of Tajikistan: Khorog and Kulob.

The training workshop was implemented within the framework of a new three-year project “Empowering Media and Civil Society Activists to Support Democratic Reforms in Tajikistan” supported by the European Union under the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR)  as well as Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and  National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

The project aims at promoting democratic reforms in Tajikistan by encouraging closer cooperation between leading human rights activists and independent media; improving the capacity of independent media to conduct investigative journalism projects and analytical reporting; and stimulating constructive dialogue within and between human rights CSOs, media, and local and national government officials concerning a variety of issues affecting the socio-economic life of the country.