POLICE TRAINING ON COMBATING HATE CRIMES
| Banja Luka | Wednesday, 09/12/2015
In the city of Banja Luka, in cooperation with OSCE in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Administration for Police Education of the Republic of Srpska Ministry of the Interior is organising two-day training whose topic is “Hate Crimes”. Participants of the program are police officers from the HQs of the Ministry and all Public Security Centres. The aim of the program is to provide the best possible training to police officers on combating hate crimes in order to improve their efficiency in combating this kind of crimes.
Head of the Administration for Police Education, Mr Mile Šikman, emphasised that, recently, the necessity was acknowledged to deal with hate crimes in the proper manner, and that the criminal legislation of the Republic of Srpska acknowledged it as well. Namely, several years ago, a chapter regulating the issue of hate crimes committed on various grounds (religious, race, nationality, gender or sexual orientation, etc.) was added to the Criminal Code of the Republic of Srpska.
Mr Šikman also highlighted the importance of the cooperation with OSCE mission in conducting the police training, and he expressed his gratitude for expert help and donation in computer equipment provided to the Republic of Srpska Ministry of the Interior by OSCE mission.
Coordinator OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mr Saša Bojanić, said that the topic of the training, hate crimes, was ongoing and added that it had represented one of the priorities of the OSCE Mission for several years. He also added that such trainings raised professional standards of the police officers, who should prevent occurrence of this criminal offence.
Mr Šikman and Mr Bojanić agreed that the cooperation of the Republic of Srpska Ministry of the Interior and OSCE Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina was very successful and that it would be continued in the following period, especially regarding the trainings that are important for these two institutions.
