Local projects seek to prevent torture in Nepal
A selected group of mid-ranking leaders from Nepal’s three law enforcement and security agencies – Nepal Police, Armed Police Force, and Forest Guards – have designed and are currently implementing their own mini-projects at their individual workstations across the country. The projects seek to make positive human rights changes in Nepal and explore new effective ways to work on the prevention of torture, cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment.
The 57 workstation mini-projects are part of a project called “Enhancing Good Governance, Human Rights Protection and Law Enforcement Situation in Security Agencies and Criminal Justice Actors in Nepal”, which the Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR) and Kathmandu School of Law (KSL) implement with support from the Danish Police and the Embassy of Denmark in Nepal.
Innovative project
The project is innovative in both its approach and partner collaborations. It is the first project where DIHR works jointly with the Danish Police abroad, and it is the first time that so many mid-ranking leaders from law enforcement and security agencies in Nepal have an opportunity to develop and implement a project of their own creation.
The mid-ranking leaders hope to achieve results that top-leadership will acknowledge and replicate or scale-up in their respective institutions.
Our focus is ‘learning-by-doing’. We want to help expand the appetite inside the law enforcement agencies for internalising human rights, recognising their mistakes and challenges, and finding practical solutions. This entails changing the work procedures, cultures and mind-set. We see a great enthusiasm for making the necessary organisational changes and that is why we are excited about this project.
Addressing root causes
All 57 different projects seek to address root causes that research in Nepal has shown contribute to torture, cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment still being committed in Nepal today. These include poor working environment, inadequate training, professional disincentives, politicisation, defective criminal justice system, attitudes towards human rights, and managing social expectations.
"In my project, the root cause that I wish to address is that people are not educated in human rights. We are developing an action card for our staff on missions. They can use the action card to find a solution whenever they are in doubt about what to do", explains Deputy Superintendent Suresh Gaire, who leads one project and is in charge of the UN training section at Armed Police Force Headquarters in Kathmandu.
Another mini-project is led by Sabin Pradhan, Deputy Superintendent of Police, Road Safety Office at the Metropolitan Police in Kathmandu: "A lot of people who are on the street do not comply with the traffic rules, so our officers need to interact a lot with people. When they do so, their behaviour is not satisfying to neither the public nor the police forces ourselves. This relates not so much to torture but more to degrading and inhumane treatment. The main reason is long stressful hours in the traffic. The traffic police officers work for 12 hours straight, and sometimes up to 14-16 hours. It can be very stressful to work on the road, and sometimes these frustrations come out in a very bad way".
Gaining trust
While the problem of torture, cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment in Nepal is not well documented, police forces acknowledge that there is a problem.
Right now our police officers are not aware of the rights of the victims or the rights of the suspects, so we need to make them aware.
Being more open to critique from the public is one of the aspects of the project where learning comes from dialogue between the Danish and the Nepali police. An openness to critique is essential to creating trust, and trust is essential to police work.
Denmark and the Nordic countries are unique because there is a high level of societal trust both amongst the population and between the public and the police. According to a survey from 2016 in Denmark, the police rank fourth on a list of the 20 most trusted professions in Denmark, surpassed only by nurses, judges and doctors.
"Trust is very fragile and the Danish Police is very focused on always answering any critique we might be subject to. We discuss this with the Nepalese because you cannot close your eyes and make the critics go away. If somebody has a bad experience with the Danish Police, we will acknowledge it and change our ways if needed", says Vice Police Commissioner, Kell Svenningsen, from the Central and West Jutland Police, who works on the project in Nepal.
He and Erik Nielsen, Police Commissioner from the South-East Jutland Police, are coaching this attitude and importance of trust to the Nepal Police.
"Trust is very essential to police work. If we do not have the trust of the public then how can we serve the public? They will not come to us for help if they don't trust us", acknowledges Ganga Panta Deputy Superintendent of Police, Human Rights Cell at the Nepal Police Headquarters.
The 57 mini-projects provide the Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Forest and Soil Conservation, and the top-ranking leadership in the Nepal Police and Armed Police Force a project-catalogue with baseline information, concrete solutions and results on how to prevent torture, ill-treatment and improper use of force by the three agencies. These stakeholders are also members of the project steering committee, which ensures the institutional support to the projects. The committee also monitors progress and results, and address any challenges that arise from the workstation projects.
The 57 mini-projects address issues within nine thematic areas: complaints handling; documentation, monitoring and use of technology; arrest and detention; public relations and citizen helpdesks; investigation; use of force including crowd control; gender, children and inclusion; work environment and stress management and finally human rights knowledge.
The Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR), Kathmandu School of Law (KSL) and the Danish Police provide capacity building, technical and management support to the mini-projects. Of the 57 projects, 34 are under the Nepal Police, 8 under the Armed Police Force and 15 are run by the Department of Forest and Department of Forest and Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation.