PART II 8.1 8 REPORTING REPORTS OF INTERVIEWS WITH INDIVIDUALS In general, reports of interviews with individuals will not be forwarded to the OSCE headquarters. However, references to individual cases, perhaps including a summary of the information in an interview report, might be appropriate in a report to OSCE headquarters. Many field operations already include such information routinely in their regular reporting. Moreover, if the alleged violation in an individual case were part of a pattern of alleged violations of the same type, this would provide a strong basis for including the issue in a report to OSCE headquarters. In some cases, the mission may judge that it should not report the information to OSCE headquarters, for example, because it is not sufficiently substantiated or because it does not constitute a human rights violation. In any of these situations, it is important for the mission to prepare and keep a good record of each interview. There are many reasons for this. An interview might later turn out to be the first report of a human rights situation that is more serious than had previously seemed. Information received later may substantiate an allegation that did not seem credible when the interview took place. An interviewee may later be the victim of further violations. Or, an interviewee may be providing the first report to the mission of what may later emerge as a pattern of human rights violations. The high turnover of international personnel in OSCE field operations makes it particularly important that reporting of individual cases be accurate, sufficiently detailed, and easily retrievable. A report of an interview with an individual must therefore contain as accurate an account of facts as possible. The more serious the allegation, the greater the need for detail and accuracy in describing it. The interviewer needs to identify in the report what information is based on the personal experiences of the interviewee and what is based on hearsay. The facts should speak for themselves without comment. It is also important for an impartial account to use language that is as objective as possible. To avoid possible confusion later, it is useful to record place names, names of people, and other such details in the language the interviewee used, as well as in English. If an interpreter is used, it may be appropriate to have the interpreter read the report of an interview, since he or she may have been the only one who directly communicated with the person interviewed. Misunderstandings can be minimized this way. Any written accounts by the interviewee, sketches, etc. should be attached to the report. 76