Staff of the Ombudsman Office participated in the Council of Europe training in Strasbourg

In recent days, in Strasbourg, France, the staff of the Ombudsman Office participated in the training organized by EU/CoE within the framework of the regional project "Strengthening the Access to Justice through Non-Judiciary Redress Mechanisms for Victims of Discrimination and Hate Crime and Hate Speech in the Eastern Partnership Countries”.

On the first day of the training, when the CoE representatives made presentations on various topics, Ms. Sabina Aliyeva, the Human Rights Commissioner of Azerbaijan, spoke about the work done by the Ombudsman Office in the field of combating discrimination, the legal awareness-raising activities conducted in this direction, as well as the proposals and recommendations presented in her Annual Reports.

Later, interactive meetings were held with representatives of the CoE’s Inclusion and Anti-Discrimination Division, the No Hate Speech and Cooperation Unit, and the Children's Rights Division. The next part of the training covered topics of human rights, gender equality, justice, and respect for human dignity.

Mr. Z. Valimammadli, the head of the Department of International Cooperation and Civil Society Institutions at the Ombudsman Office, held meetings with the heads of the CoE’s Cooperation Projects Department, the Anti-Discrimination Department, CoE's Human Rights Director, the head of the CoE's Directorate General Human Rights, Justice, and Legal Co-operation. During these meetings, Z. Valimammadli gave detailed information about the activities of the Ombudsman Office in these directions.

The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages was discussed in the training held by the representatives of the Division of National Minorities and Minority Languages, whereas the issues of cooperation and expansion of opportunities  were put on the table with the Division of Combating Hate Speech. In the end, the representatives of the Ombudsman Office exchanged views with the head of the Department for Cooperation Programs for Azerbaijan and Georgia.

On the second day of the training, the Secretary of the Steering Committee on Anti-Discrimination, Diversity, and Inclusion gave information about the activity of the Committee, and the Project Representative of the Intercultural Cities Program talked about the studies of the countries covered by the program.

In the end, a meeting was held with Latif Huseynov, a judge of the ECtHR, information on the work experience of the Court was obtained, and the questions addressed by the employees regarding different areas of human rights were answered.