AICHR hosts dialogue on realising Southeast Asia as a Torture-Free region

BANTEN, 22 August 2024 – The ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) conducted an ASEAN Dialogue on Realising Southeast Asia as a Torture-Free Region in Banten on 20-21 August.

The dialogue aimed to provide a platform to share measures and enhance capacity building for the police officers, security forces, and other law enforcement officers in Southeast Asia on the use of Mendez Principles, Istanbul Protocol, Tokyo Rules, and Bangkok Rules. Additionally, it sought to develop comprehensive recommendations for the implementation of Article 14 of the AHRD focusing on prevention, investigation, prosecution, and rehabilitation.

Wahyuningrum, the representative of Indonesia to AICHR, stated in her opening remarks that holding the annual Dialogue on Realising Southeast Asia as a Torture-Free Region reflects ASEAN’s commitment to the universal consensus that torture is an egregious violation of human dignity. Mathias Domenig, Deputy Head of Mission at the Embassy of Switzerland in Indonesia, emphasised the importance of collaboration in exploring more ethical alternatives toward achieving a world without torture.

Lorraine Finlay, Human Rights Commissioner from Australia’s Human Rights Commission, underscored that torture is indefensible from an ethical perspective and unreliable and ineffective in the outcomes it produces, but also it undermines the efforts to make our communities feel safer and to build public confidence in police and law enforcement agencies.

More than 80 participants from the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, National Police, ASEAN Member States (AMS) and ASEAN sectoral bodies attended the Dialogue. The dialogue applied various methodologies such as plenary, group discussion, case study scenarios and film discussion.

In the two-day dialogue, participants discussed progress in compliance with the UN Convention Against Torture; deliberated on the contribution of the national human rights institutions; shared practices and lessons learnt on the effective investigative interview, including approaches in interviewing child victims, witnesses and children alleged to have or accused of having committed crime-related offences and gender dimension; and the use of film to improve the prison condition in AMS.

This dialogue is the implementation of the AICHR Five-Year Work Plan 2021-2025 and coherence with the ASEAN Political-Security Community Blueprint 2025 as well as the joint activity between the AICHR and the Southeast Asian National Human Rights Institutions Forum.

This dialogue is organised in partnership with the Jakarta Centre for Law Enforcement Cooperation and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Indonesia and supported by the Australian Human Rights Commission and Switzerland Embassy in Jakarta.