After Kenya in June and Morocco in early October, CT PHARE has just implemented in collaboration with the National Counter Terrorism Agency of the Republic of Indonesia, its third capacity building activity on the roles and responsibilities of oversight and accountability mechanisms in countering terrorism in South and Southeast Asia countries.
From the 31st to 2nd November in Jakarta, the CT PHARE team welcomed 32 high-level practitioners from oversight and accountability mechanisms of Police Complaints Authorities, Police Ombuds Institutions, NHRI’s, as well as judiciary, law enforcement, bar association and civil society organisations (CSOs). Six different countries were represented: Indonesia, Malaysia, Maldives, the Philippines, Timor-Leste and Thailand.
Mr. Marc Vierstraete-Verlinde, Counter-Terrorism/Security Expert to South-East Asia Counsellor from the EU Delegation to Indonesia and Brunei Darussalam and Delegation to ASEAN and Mr. Andhika Chrisnayudhanto, Deputy for International Cooperation the National Counter Terrorism Agency of the Republic of Indonesia kindly opened the ceremony, together with the IIJ CT PHARE Project Lead, Paul Madden.
It was also an honour to work with experts coming from different regional and international backgrounds, such as the Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate of the UN Security Council, the CSO Coalition on Human Rights & Counterterrorism, the Danish Institute for Human Rights, as well as the South East Asia National Human Rights Institutions Forum (SEANF).
Based on the main objective of this capacity building activity, the three-day working sessions and interactive discussions led to identifying gaps, vulnerabilities, lessons learned and good practices on the role and responsibilties of oversight and accountability mechanisms, a set of recommendations from Southeast Asia countries will be developed to strenghten the protection of human rights in the context of counter-terrorism operations.
Many of the practitioners suggested to explore existing South-South platforms and to establish working groups on best practices in the field of human rights and counter-terrorism. The ASEAN Institute for Peace and Reconciliation has been mentioned as a possible venue.
Finally, as highlighted also in the previous activities in Kenya and in Morocco, they all appreciated the inclusion of civil society organisations in the consultations, and based on the added-value they bring into the discussions, they should be even more represented.
The last regional activity on oversight and accountability mechanisms will be replicated in Jordan in November 2023.
CT PHARE is generously funded by the service for Foreign Policy Instruments (FPI) of the European Commission.
