Azernews.Az

BAKU – A two-day community policing conference, organized by the OSCE, began on Thursday with senior Azerbaijani police management, government agencies, civil society and international experts.

Five years ago, the OSCE Office in Baku launched a project under which it works closely with the Interior Ministry to develop community policing and other forms of police-public partnerships in Azerbaijan.

"Thanks to this project, there has been a notable improvement in the communication between the police and the public, resulting in better co-operation and improved mutual trust," said Bilge Cankorel, head of the OSCE office.

"We also work together to develop strategies to increase the number of women in the police service, and to improve the police response to gender-related violence such as domestic violence and trafficking in human beings."

Deputy Interior Minister Oruj Zalov said in remarks at the conference that public confidence in the Azerbaijani police has increased owing to the government’s successful cooperation with the OSCE. He said significant achievements have been made in crime prevention and cooperation between law enforcers and citizens.

Zalov said some 720 police officers have been punished in Azerbaijan over violations in the past three years. 14 of them faced criminal charges, while 36 were dismissed.

The deputy minister said that today each policeman is well aware that he would be severely punished for violations committed at work, and therefore senses the full brunt of responsibility for his job.

The OSCE Secretariat's Strategic Police Matters Unit (SPMU) will present an assessment of the community-policing project in Azerbaijan during the conference. The report includes several recommendations on how to improve officers' community policing skills. It also looks at how the police services' structures can be improved to promote community policing, and it suggests the creation of new venues for police-community interaction.