Yerevan, November 13, Noyan Tapan. On November 12 a two-day workshop dedicated to the problems of a productive attampt of implementation of the facultative record of proceedings of the Convention against Torture, which was organized by the Open Society Institute and the Helsinki Committees of Armenia and Bulgaria, started in Yerevan. Armenia ratified this record of proceedings in 2006, assuming the responsibility for developing national preventive mechanisms for its implementation. It is envisaged to introduce suggestions concerning the preventive mechanisms of the record of proceedings based on the results of the workshop to the authorities of Armenia. Krassimir Kanev, the Director of the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, mentioned that places of imprisonment are more open in front of society in Armenia than in many European countries, including Switzerland, the founding country of the record of proceedings. Silvia Pogolsa, the Human Rights Officer of the OSCE Office in Yerevan, told journalists that preventive mechanisms usually work in corresponding institutions due to the monitoring conducted by non-governmental organizations (those institutions, including places of imprisonment, are regarded as closed in certain countries). In this respect, she attached imprortance to the holding of a monitoring in the places of imprisonment of the Ministry of Justice and the places of preliminary detention of the police. In her words, it is necessary that orphanages, old-aged pensioner's homes, psychiatrical hospitals as well should be open. In the estimation of the OSCE Officer, this process has a positive start and course in Armenia.

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