A further important activity in 2018 was the international exchange with partner organisations. Commissioner for Refugees, Asylum and Immigration Matters of the Land of SchleswigHolstein, which addressed the case of Oury Jalloh, who died in 2005 in a police station in Dessau. The National Agency took part in an NPM conference hosted by the Slovenian NPM, together with the Council of Europe, in th Ljubljana on the occasion of its 10 anniversary. The conference focused on how NPMs deal with the issue of assessing the effectiveness and efficiency of their own work. In the course of its work, the National Agency has found that to ensure the humane treatment of persons deprived of their liberty, it is vital that employees view their profession from a human rights perspective. For this reason, the National Agency further intensified its activities in the field of employee training in 2018. For example, it presented the work it does at the summer course “The European System of Human Rights Protection” at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt an der Oder. At the invitation of Austria, the annual exchange of NPMs from Germany, Austria and Switzerland took place in Vienna this year. This regular exchange primarily serves to provide a platform for discussion and to enable the further development of standards. The three NPMs are often confronted with similar challenges, which is why an exchange on various solutions is particularly helpful. The latest meeting focussed on visits to facilities for people with disabilities. In the area of police training, existing cooperation with training institutions was intensified and new collaborative schemes were st established. At the 21 meeting of the Working Group on Empirical Police Research in Münster, the National Agency reported on its findings and the standards it sets for the humane treatment of persons deprived of their liberty by the police. As part of the project “Political Education and the Police”, which is organised jointly by the Federal Agency for Civic Education [Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung], the German Police University [Deutsche Hochschule der Polizei] and the University of Applied Sciences for Public Administration and Management of North Rhine-Westphalia, the National Agency now offers a training module on the protection of human rights and human dignity in police detention. The aim is to ensure that the findings from ten years of visiting activities are used to inform the way in which police candidates are trained. The Agency’s experience should contribute to efforts to raise awareness for human rights challenges in this particular area of police action. Following on from its focus in 2017 on the topic of police detention, the National Agency also took part in the international conference “Fair Treatment of Persons in Police Custody” at Brandenburg Police University. There, it conducted a workshop on the practical challenges encountered in protecting basic rights and human rights during the G20 summit in Hamburg. A table in the annex to this report provides an overview of all activities conducted in 2018 that went beyond the National Agency’s visits to facilities. Finally, 2018 also saw a number of changes in the Agency’s personnel. The Conference of Justice Ministers appointed the Chair of the Joint Commission, State Secretary Rainer Dopp (retd) as well as three members of the Joint Commission, Dr Monika Deuerlein, Petra Heß and Margret Osterfeld, for a further term of four years. The mandates of members Prof. Dr Dirk Lorenzen and Senior Chief Superintendent Hartmut Seltmann (retd) came to an end at the end of the year. Chief Senior Public Prosecutor Petra Bertelsmeier (retd) and Dr Werner Päckert, Leitender Regierungsdirektor (retd), were appointed as new members. 2019 marks the beginning of their mandates. The present report as well as information on the work of the National Agency may be 1 accessed on the Agency’s website. Additionally, the National Agency is also active on social 2 networks where it provides concise information on its work as an NPM to the broader public. 1 https://www.nationale-stelle.de/en/home.html Twitter: “@NationaleStelle”, Facebook: “Nationale Stelle zur Verhütung von Folter / NPM Germany” 2 11