ASTANA (TCA) — An OSCE-supported seminar on assessing and managing the risks of violent extremist prisoners, including the rehabilitation of returning Foreign Terrorist Fighters, concluded in Astana last week. The two-day workshop was organized by the OSCE Programme Office in Astana together with the joint United Nations System and European Union programme on the prevention of violent extremism in prisons.
Some 70 participants gathered to discuss methods and practices applied in penitentiary systems in the treatment of prisoners convicted of violent extremist crimes. Officials from the Ministry of Internal Affairs Prison Committee and National Security Committee as well as representatives of academia and civil society exchanged ideas with experts from Austria, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the United States and United Kingdom.
Presentations included case studies and examples of methods that had been successful in rehabilitation programmes for those convicted of violent extremist crimes. Special attention was paid to ways of working with civil society, management of prison staff, risk assessment and management of violent extremist prisoners, managing prison-based disengagement interventions and prison-based disengagement interventions.
The event was part of the OSCE Programme Office in Astana’s long-term support of projects to counter violent extremism and radicalization that lead to terrorism.
The joint UN and EU programme which co-organized the event is implemented by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNCCT) and the United Nations Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED). It is co-funded by the European Union, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the UNCCT.
Early in November, dozens of inmates were killed in a riot at a prison in the northern city of Khujand in Tajikistan.
The extremist group Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility, saying the riot broke out after one of its “soldiers” attacked a prison guard.
State-connected sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, told RFE/RL on November 9 that suspected IS supporters convicted of religious extremism and terrorism were behind the unrest.
The penitentiary in Khujand — high-security prison No. 3/3 — largely houses inmates convicted on charges related to terrorism, extremism, and other serious crimes.
