Kazakhstan is working aggressively to improve its human rights record with a three-year action plan that calls on active support from civil rights groups, a top government official says, Central Asia Newswire reported.
The state's National Human Rights Action Plan, adopted in May 2009, aims to formulate and improve governmental policy in the sphere of human rights.
The project recently passed the half-way mark.
"We have developed and adopted a national document which provides a list of concrete steps to improve the legislation and law enforcement practice, national system of protection of human rights, and increase the literacy of population regarding their rights and mechanisms aimed at ensuring those rights," said Tastemir Abishev, Secretary of the Presidential Commission for Human Rights, a key driver of the project.
"As of 10 January 2011, around 40 percent of the recommendations provided in the National Plan have been implemented in practice," the Kazakh Ministry of Foreign Affairs website mfa.kz quoted Abishev as telling the local Liter newspaper.
The project has led to the creation of a digital library in the Kazakh and Russian languages that keeps records of complaints and communications filed by citizens to government bodies, while providing visitors with free legal information on human rights issues, Abishev said.
The online library, launched in partnership with the UN Development Program and UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), is unique in scope among the ex-Soviet nations of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), he said.
Abishev noted that data provided by the non-governmental sector greatly helps the commission to assess human rights conditions nationwide and contributes toward improving legislation on rights issues.
As one of the chief state bodies that oversees implementation of the National Plan for 2009-2012, Abishev's organization consists of 23 members, many of which are from the non-governmental sector.
The commission interacts with NGOs at conferences, round tables, and training seminars. Its members also provide NGOs with methodological and consultative support, while NGOs sometimes refer difficult complaints to the commission, he noted.
The commission receives support from a slew of international rights bodies that include the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the European Commission, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) among others.
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