Dimbokro, 29 August2009...The UN Operation in Côte d'Ivoire (UNOCI) conducted two training seminars in « Human Rights and the Law Enforcement » for about 60 gendarmes and police officers from the Daoukro and Dimbokro areas on 26 and 28 August respectively.

The seminars are part of a national capacity building programme for law enforcement officers, mounted by UNOCI's Human Rights Division with a view to enabling them to better protect and promote human rights, according to Ms Saoudatou Fousseni, UNOCI's human rights officer in Yamoussoukro. "We organized this training so that human rights can become a reflex in the exercise of your duties in maintaining law and order," she told participants in the Dimbokro seminar.

Speaking at the opening of that seminar, the commander of the Third Legion of the Gendarmerie, Lt. Col. Arsène Abé Seka, thanked UNOCI for organizing such a training course. He stressed that the idea of the seminar was not to question the knowledge of members of the Defence and Security Forces (FDS) but to remind them of certain basic principles. « Pay particular attention to this workshop and draw as much information from it as possible, » he advised the participants.

UNOCI's Rule of Law Section ran some of the modules of the two seminars, which focused in particular on basic human rights principles, principles related to arrest and detention, and basic principles regarding the use of force and arms.