WHAT’S INSIDE

EUPOL Supporting Sustainable Transition

Newsletter of the European Union Police Mission in Afghanistan

PATROLWOMAN NARGIS: “I want more responsibilities” page 7

IN THE MOI Planning together with Deputy Minister Azizi page 6

ATLAS: A five-day ‘Access to Legal Aid’ Training at EUPOL HQ page 4-5

Freshta Kakar is a defence lawyer and after her graduation from the Sharia Faculty in Kabul University, she started working at the Legal Aid Department of the Ministry of Jus-tice (MoJ) nine months ago. Since then, the young lawyer has already dealt with a number of cases, includ-ing a murder case where she saved a teenager from a prison sentence. She recalls vividly especially the murder case which took her four months to investi-gate: “There was a murder case in which two brothers were arrested. Both of their files were sent to the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) and the brothers were sen-tenced to 16 years imprisonment.” She says that the younger one, 16 years old, was her client. She goes on to explain the case: “He

rejected the allegations of being part of the murder case. After thorough investigations which included visiting the school, I dis-covered that the young boy was at school at the time of murder and only his elder brother was allegedly the murderer. I felt very proud after having saved the boy, oth-erwise he would have suffered 16 years in prison for a crime he hadn’t committed.” The case had a satisfactory outcome for her and the justice system of Afghanistan. For Freshta, this was more than just one case because her profession is also her pas-sion: “I always wanted to be a lawyer, es-pecially a defence lawyer, finally I reached my goal.” For her this is certainly not the end of her career. This is why she tries to edu-

No 8, November 2014

CHECK THE NEW EUPOL WEBSITE! 1

THE JUSTICE SECTOR REFORM SHOULD START AT

THE TOP

1-2

POLICE, PROSECUTORS AND DEFENSE LAWYERS

SHOULD WORK TOGETHER

3-4

SCHOOL OUTREACH BUILD TRUST AND IMAGE OF

POLICING 5

PLANNING TOGETHER WITH DEPUTY MINISTER OF

INTERIOR 6

JAMMING FOR SECURITY 6

HOT FIRE RESPONSE TRAINING IN KABUL 6

PATROL WOMAN NARGIS WANTS TO HAVE MORE

RESPONSIBILITIES 7

CARTOON BOOK INSTRUCTS STUDENTS TO CALL 119 7

THE ONLY WAY TO SUCCESS IS TO WORK CLOSELY

WHIT THE PEOPLE AND GAIN THEIR TRUST

8

Defence lawyer Freshta Kakar:

“The justice sector reform should start at the top”

Check out our new EUPOL website!

Continues on page 2

Editorial Staff:

Sari Haukka-Konu, Christiane Buck,

Aziz Basam

EUPOL Press and Public Information Office

@EupolAfg_HoM

facebook.com/EUPOLAFG

flickr.com/eupolafgmedia

press.office@eupol-afg.eu

www.eupol-afg.eu

Fresha believes in change: corruption is a huge problem but it is never too late to fight against corruption and enhance reforms.

EUPOL Press and Public information Of-fice proudly present the re-launched mis-sion website! www.eupol-afg.eu. We want our website to be informative and convenient to use. Although we have worked hard to enhance it, we warmly wel-come feedback and suggestions to improve it further.

Don’t hesitate to send us comments to press.office@eupol-afg.eu. We are updating it on a regular basis. Check it out!

www.eupol-afg.eu

2 EUPOL - Supporting Sustainable Transition, November 2014

Getting ready for 2015/2016

I am pleased to say that the Mission’s work has been praised by EU member states in Brussels where I have presented our six monthly report in Mid October. Most im-portantly, we have been given credit for how we have been approaching the transition into the revised mandate for 2015/2016. I am confident that we will also be able to be fully operational to advise on the stra-tegic level on 1 January next year. We are doing our utmost to prepare our advisers to be ready for their essential daily work: part of this preparation is the drafting of a advis-ing at the strategic level handbook as well as a new advisory concept which is currently developed and which has been fully em-braced by the Head of Planning and Meth-odology in Brussels. This crucial concept will be finalised in the next two months but we also will be extremely busy to hand over our current activities to our Afghan part-ners. I will also make sure that the Rule and Law working group will be entirely focused on the mission transition of Rule and Law to other possible partners when we will close the component at the end of 2015. Also my guidance for the next months will be to have tighter Mission Implementation Plans in place to monitor activity and advising pro-gress across all the mission.

There is plenty of work ahead for all of us, with change and plenty of challenges with moving into sustainable transition. Yet, I do see it as an opportunity to showcase that our Afghan partners have made already considerable progress but I am also aware that the reform of the Afghan police and criminal justice institutions is a long-term task which is not completed yet. My staff are getting ready for the huge tasks ahead, but we will use our time wisely to achieve gradu-al and sustainable transition to local owner-ship and to other EU and international ac-tors to safeguard the achievements made.

Karl Åke Roghe EUPOL Head of Mission

cate herself whenever she can. She has taken a number of law courses as well, which were organised by the Legal Aid Organisation of Afghanistan (LAOA). In addition, she has recently attended an Access to Legal Aid System (ATLAS) course at EUPOL Headquarters in Kabul. “The participants of ATLAS course, or-ganised by EUPOL, made a good combi-nation of prosecutors, police officers and defence lawyers. It was very important for us to point out the challenges and share our opinions”, says Freshta. There is one thing that bothers Freshta tremendously in her line of work. She says that corruption in governmental or-ganisations in Afghanistan is a huge con-cern and hinders thorough investigations. “It is about the interference of high-ranking people in justice and police or-ganisations which causes major prob-lems,“ she says. “Corruption within the Attourney General’s Office, among the Afghan National Police (ANP) and justice organisations has caused challenges for defence lawyers.” But Freshta is a firm believer in change. She says that it is never too late to fight against corruption and enhance re-forms. But she adds: “We should start right now. Even today is not too late. In my opinion, the justice sector reform should start at the top. If a person in a leadership mission is involved in corrup-tion, I do believe that subsequently the subordinates will be corrupt as well.”

From page 1

Freshta Kakar attended with 22 other lawyers, prosecutors and police officers an Access to Legal Aid System (ATLAS) course at EUPOL Headquarters in October.

EUPOL - Supporting Sustainable Transition, November 2014 3

There is a need for closer cooperation among legal aid providers, police and prosecutors. This was one of the main conclusions of the participants of the five-day ATLAS (Access to the Legal Aid System) training and coordination workshop which took place at EUPOL Headquarters in October. One of the aims of the course, was to educate the 23 attendees from the police, Attorney General’s Office and the justice sector on essential legal aid principles, laws and regula-tions related to interrogations and the rights of detainees. And most importantly, how they actually can increase their cooperation and mutual understanding of their roles. This was much needed, explains one participant, Prosecutor Adila Kohistani, who works at the Afghan Attorney General’s Office: “This course taught us about the responsibilities of

the police, prosecutors and defence lawyers, and how to increase the cooperation with each other. For us it is clearer now that Police and prosecutors should work closely together and we should know the rights of the suspect to have access to a defence lawyer.”

For 2nd Sergeant Jamaluddin who works at the Char Asyaab District Police HQ in Ka-bul, the workshop provided him with a deep-er understanding about the law: “We were taught how to treat suspects. Now we under-stand how important the role of a defence lawyer is: Criminals and suspects constantly claim that police reports are baseless, but if these reports are written in the presence of the defence lawyers, nobody can claim that any more.” He will certainly apply the huge lessons learned here into daily practice with having a defence lawyers present.

Thus, the ATLAS training assisted not only the police officers but also the others

participants to understand how important defence lawyersactually are in the current justice system. However, prosecutor Zameer, thought that there is still a lot to learn: “I sug-gest this course should be longer, two weeks or even four weeks in order to discuss all our concerns and seek possible solutions. This would be practical as we are already in the same room together with policemen and de-fence lawyers.”

Some practical solutions and common ground were already found: Finally it was agreed that there is a need for further legal awareness and coordination among all ac-tors involved. At the same time, very con-crete ideas and suggestions to enhance the cooperation were brought up in the work-shop. Especially on the final day, ATLAS coordination workshop focused on identify-

Police, prosecutors and defence lawyers must work together

Continues on page 4

The 23 participants of the ATLAS training came from the Ministry of Interior Criminal Investigation Department and Legal Affairs General Directorate, the Attorney General’s Office and the Ministry of Justice Legal Aid Department. Also some independent defense lawyers from Kabul attended the training.

4 EUPOL - Supporting Sustainable Transition, November 2014

ing practical solutions to enhance access to legal aid. For example, there was a mutual suggestion that a list of the phone numbers of defence lawyers should be distributed in eve-ry police station so all those who need legal aid and defence lawyers during all stages of criminal investi-gation, can use them.

Among the 23 participants were police officers from the Ministry of Interior Criminal Investigation De-partment (CID) and Legal Affairs General Directorate, prosecutors from the Attorney-General’s Office and legal aid providers from the Min-istry of Justice (MoJ) Legal Aid De-partment and independent defence lawyers working in Kabul. The train-ing was conducted by Afghan AT-LAS trainer, Mr. Muzafari, from the Legal Aid Organisation of Afghani-stan. For the young defence lawyer Freshta Kakar (portrayed on page 1) this was an excellent mix of partici-pants with all essential actors present who are actually dealing with real cases: “It was very important for us to point out the challenges and share our opinions and discuss actually cases. ”

From page 3

ATLAS coordination workshop focused on identifying practical solutions to enhance the access to the legal aid system. Some concrete ideas and suggestions were brought up during lively discussions.

EUPOL - Supporting Sustainable Transition, November 2014 5

This is the daily routine of a community policing member in one of Kabul Police Districts. Noor Mohammad, after studying for six months at a police academy in Tur-key, has started to work at PD 7 in Kabul two years ago. “I was assigned at the sports section of the PD. Yet, I am not very much into sports, but when we were asked to start the Police-e Mardume outreach pro-grammes, I was one of the first volunteers to contribute,’’says Noor Mohmmad.

He is proud to be one of the six selected police officers in his PD who qualified to conduct school outreach programmes after Police-e Mardume training where 34 of his colleagues participated. He is very keen to talk about his work: ”We visited nine schools, reached out to 532 male and female students. We provided the students with an introduction of our activities, and how the police can be helpful in difficult times and how the students can help the police by tak-

ing part in ensuring securi-ty.’’ There were some instant results: “The students did not have any knowledge about our work at PD 7. After the outreach pro-grammes, however, they think we are friends. They trust us more and they think the Afghan police are well-trained and developed now.’’ Working in PDs is not easy all the time. Noor Mohammad believes he and his colleagues have tried their best to be close to the people and work with them as part of their duties, but sometimes the personnel responsible for conducting training cours-es or attending the courses

are assigned for the protection of powerful people and officials as guards, which dis-tract them from their main duties. This is bothering him: “In my opinion, we should continue the outreach programmes because we have received many good results. I was really surprised when an old man came to our PD and thanked us after his problem was solved by calling 119, the number we shared with his daughter during the school outreach programme. We should focus more on such activities, rather than doing other tasks as protecting politicians. In addition to that, 80 to 90 high school girls showed inter-est to join the police after our courses in PD 7. This is a huge achievement,’’ says Noor Mohammad. According to Noor Mohammad, in PD 7 there are a number of people, mostly young boys who harass school girls while going to schools or returning from schools. In his opinion, this problem can only be solved if the girls and witnesses contact the police in PD 7 and the 119 police hotline. Noor Mohammad is also one of the Po-lice-e Mardume members who received a Best Practice Certificate for his work within the Police-e Mardume Unit. ‘’I was happy to hear that we were praised to conduct high-quality outreach programmes within a short period of time. The certificate motivates me to work even harder. I would like to contin-ue the outreach programmes not only in schools, but also deliver them for the people and elders of the people in PD 7.’’

School outreach builds trust and

the image of policing

1st Sergeant Noor Mohammad believes that the best way to fight problems like harassment of school girls is to provide people with the police’s contact numbers and to encourage girls to contact police

1st Sergeant Noor Mohammad Azimi starts his duty at 7:00 in the morning. First he completes all inside-the-office tasks and prepares the syllabus and les-son plans. Then he visits schools to de-liver training as part of Police-e Mar-dume (Community Policing) Outreach Programme. After lunch and offering his prayers, Noor Mohammad waits for the Chief of Police District (PD) to task him for other duties. At the end of the long day, he goes to university and stud-ies law in the evening.

6 EUPOL - Supporting Sustainable Transition, November 2014

At the beginning of 2015 EUPOL will move under the new mandate mainly to advising at strategic level. But working at the strategic level is not entirely new for EUPOL as the senior management of the mission has already established solid and fruitful working relationships with the leaders in the Ministry of Interi-or and the Ministry of Justice. The Deputy Head of Mission Pia Stjernvall meets regularly with Deputy Minister of Interior, Masood Ahmad Azizi. Part of the agenda in October was planning issues: how to integrate the planning of the Ministry of Interior and the implementation plans of the Mission.

In addition, individual one-to-one media coaching and advising is now being offered to the Deputy Minister Azizi by EUPOL Social Media and Crisis Communication Expert Terry Scaife. He was given a challenging interview about his role in developing and implementing policy and strategy. This was organised by Hanneke Lukacs who is the mentor to Deputy Minister Azizi.

Fire Response Training for EUPOL members was concluded in October with a realistic live fire exercise at the Afghan Central Fire Station in Kabul. Prior to the exercise, participants had passed theoretical and practical studies related to the basics of the fire response, hazard controls and safety procedures. EUPOL Fire Marshal Jaanus Teearu says that the training of EUPOL staff on how to react to real fires and to familiarise the staff with real hazards in the camp are essential to ensure preparedness for disasters.

The Head of Mission took part in the Security Jam on 14 to 16 October 2014. The Security Jam fo-cused the brain power of thousands of experts around the world on key security issues. Over 54 hours and across six discussions forums, partici-pants were logged to online collaboration platform to discuss topics as diverse as strategic partner-ships, crisis management, future capabilities and cyber-security.

The Head of Mission took part as a VIP partici-pant in Forum number 2: ‘The EU as a security broker’. His participation was supported with in-puts from PPIO, Political Adviser and EUPOL team in Brussels.

Jamming for security

Hot fire response training in Kabul

Planning with the Deputy Minister of Interior

EUPOL - Supporting Sustainable Transition, November 2014 7

Patrolwoman Nargis has worked at Police District 12 (PD 12) the last three years. For her, it is essential that the police and the people work together to improve the security in the areas where they live. This is ex-actly what she is doing as an Com-munity Policing School outreach of-ficer. To establish this cooperation, she deliber-ately reaches out to children and students: “We distributed school bags and stationery. They were very happy and realised that the police are not their enemies, as we acted as their friends and family members. I think it is a good start for future cooperation”, says Nargis. She is grateful that the Community Policing course, organised by EUPOL, which enabled her to deliver Community

Policing Outreach courses in PD 12. Yet, on her mind are constantly security

issues: This is why she not only reaches out to children and students to build trust but also to her neighbours who address and dis-cuss with her their security concerns.

Quite often, these discussions end up eventually in the sharing of useful infor-mation with the police. Nargis recalls an example of the fruitful cooperation between the people and police in PD 12. This exam-ple also demonstrates that Nargis, a mother of three children, is a brave and dedicated police officer: “We have received a report that suicide vests are being kept in a house located in PD 12. I was told to jump through the wall and open the door of the house from the other side. I saw two women with a young boy. The men were not at home in the house at that time. The report

was unfortunately true: we found the suicide vests with explosives. The police arrested the suspects later.”

The ambitious woman has never had any second thoughts about putting her life at risk. She just loves her job which give her satisfaction: “People respect my uniform and I am very proud of it.”

For her best performance in terms of community policing, Kabul City Police Command and EUPOL have awarded Nargis a Best Practice Certificate. “I was extremely happy when I received the certifi-cate. Now my only wish is to be promoted as soon as possible. Only then I will receive more tasks because my present rank limits the line of my work. I really want to have more responsibilities to deliver more. This is my aim.”

1,000 school bags and educational cartoon books have been distributed by Kabul City Police-e Mardume Department to the students of Qabel Bai School in Kabul. EUPOL has been involved in supporting the Afghan Police-e Mardume units with providing training and mentoring sessions in Kabul, Mazar-e Sharif and Herat prov-inces. In addition, about 9,000 educational cartoon books titled: “What can the po-lice do for you? Call 119”, have been produced by the EUPOL Community Policing Department.

Cartoons instruct students to call 119

Kabul City Police Command and EUPOL awarded Nargis a Best Practice Certificate for her performance in community policing.

Patrolwoman Nargis

ready to take on more responsibilities

23-year-old 1st Sergeant Mohammad Saleem is a young policeman who is a role-model for his other colleagues. For two and a half years, Saleem has been working as a computer operator, registering the names of people visit-ing the Police District 5 (PD5) in Ka-bul. He also provides the people with guidance on how to submit their ap-plications.

This is not the only task Saleem is perform-ing, he is very active providing Police-e Mardume (Community Policing) outreach programmes for the schools and orphanages in Kabul PD 5. In addition, he is one of the member of the Training and Education Unit. In the past, he gained some international experience which provided him with in-sights in community policing: “I studied for six months in Turkey. I saw there that the Turkish Police had an excellent code of con-duct with the people. I learned plenty from them, therefore for me it was almost natural for me to become one of the volunteers to provide Police-e Mardume outreach pro-grammes to set up the cooperation between the people and the police in PD5.

For Saleem the Police-e Mardume pro-gramme is an important step reaching out to the people. As he witnessed in Turkey him-self, he believes that the Afghan police should have a good relationship with the people: “We as the police should treat the people the way we want them to treat us. By following this approach, we will gain more trust,” of which Saleem is convinced.

Apparently, he is on the right path to-

wards this gaining of trust. He shares proud-ly one of his achievements: “In Deh Araban area of PD5, there was a dispute among two brothers. Their old father asked me to visit their house and settle the dispute. Usually, police are not informed about family dis-putes. It was the greatest feeling ever when an old father trusted me, took me to his home and asked me for support.”

Saleem is always eager to enhance fur-ther his knowledge. This is why he signed up for a Police-e Mardume courses organ-ised by EUPOL: “It was a very important course for me - to learn how to build coop-eration between the people and the police. I organised a number of outreach programmes for more than 2500 students and orphans. This is a big achievement in our district.”

Whenever he goes to visit schools and orphanages, he shares with the students and orphans the contact numbers of the Police District, and sometimes even his private cell phone number. His message is constantly: call us or the hotline 110 whenever you need assistance. This approach proved to be effective. He recalls: “I received a call from a school student when some students were fighting. I immediately went there and set-tled the dispute. This only happened because I shared my phone number and the 119 hot-line with the students during the outreach programme.” Quite rightly he has been cho-sen to receive one of the Best Practice Cer-tificate by EUPOL and Kabul City Police (KCP) for his performance. “It is an honour for me to receive the certificate. My mes-sage for police officers is: The only way to success is to work closely with the people and gain their trust!”

8 EUPOL - Supporting Sustainable Transition, November 2014

The only way to success is to

work closely with the people and gain their trust

Mohammad Saleem has organised several outreach programmes for the schools and orphanages in the area of Police District 5.

“We as the police should treat the people the way we want them to treat us.”

- 1st Sergeant Mohammad Saleem