Russia: Moscow Prison Partnership Project - Disseminating the lessons

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Start date: 
Monday, March 8, 2004
End date: 
Thursday, February 10, 2005

At the request of the Russian partners, work was undertaken in 2004 to disseminate the lessons learned in Moscow throughout the federal districts of Russia. This follow-up project was co-sponsored by the Global Opportunities Fund and the Ford Foundation. 

Partners from Moscow and the United Kingdom ran a series of workshops in the federal districts, concentrating on methods of improving the human rights situation for prisoners and personnel. They assisted local staff in producing a human rights gap analysis, using the handbook A Human Rights Approach to Prison Management, and in putting together action plans on how to tackle issues which they had identified through the gap analysis. Local human rights ombudsmen and prosecutors who have inspection powers in Russia were also engaged in the workshops and the work received positive press coverage from local and national media. At one of the prisons in the Urals, the project team met with Mr Lukin, the Presidential Human Rights Ombudsman, who voiced his support for the work.

The project was endorsed by the Deputy Minister of Justice of Russia, Yuri Kalinin, who sent an official letter of appreciation to the British Ambassador. In it he expressed his thanks for continued support of the work to develop and enhance the observance of human rights in the Russian penal system, and for making available in Russian the handbook A Human Rights Approach to Prison Management to prison staff.

The Moscow Prison Partnership Project formally concluded in 2005.

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