At a Network meeting in late June 2015 in Tirana, there was a workshop on the topic of “Access to health care in prisons and detention centres”. In October 2015, delegates of the SEE NPM Network and representatives of the CPT and SPT again met in Tirana to consult on the refugee crisis in Europe; the topic of this meeting was “Migration and Asylum”. There were discussions about the challenges from a human rights perspective experienced by all the countries along the Balkan route during the massive refugee and migration flows. Core points of the sharing of opinions were particular risk factors for serial human rights violations as a result of this development, situations that are critical from a human rights perspective during forced returns, as well as the role of NPMs as the control body of the exercise of acts of direct administrative power and coercive measures. The second main topic of this meeting was the organisation of transit and emergency reception stations for refugees and the responsibility of the individual nations when registering the arriving persons. Agreement was reached to the effect that compliance with standards in the provision of basic care, i.e. health services, food, water, housing, sanitary installations, had to be monitored more thoroughly by the NPMs and that closer cooperation among the NPMs is absolutely necessary to maintain the human dignity of the asylum seekers. Topics in 2015 After a unanimous vote, the Austrian NPM will be the chair of the SEE Network for 2016. Mr Siroos Mirzaei, a member of the Austrian NPM in Commission 6, was elected to chair the Medical Group of the SEE Network and will undertake to develop medical standards that are deemed indispensable. 1.9.2. NPM Network meeting in Vienna After a very stimulating first meeting with colleagues from NPMs in German-speaking countries (2014 in Berlin), the AOB invited to a follow-up meeting in Vienna in October 2015. At the request of the representatives of the German and Swiss NPM, the focus of this meeting, which was held over the course of several days, was on the monitoring and control of social institutions, which were being included in the visiting plans of these two countries for the first time. Unlike in classic detention situations, there is neither a comprehensive set of relevant international and national human rights standards nor has there been basic research done in social sciences with regard to these types of facilities and institutions, which could be built upon. In this area, the Austrian NPM has already largely autonomously established a body of knowledge gained from experience about how preventive monitoring and control can be undertaken efficiently from a human rights perspective. In addition to theoretic modules that were presented by expert members of the commissions, the German and Swiss colleagues were given the opportunity to accompany three Good exchange 22

Select target paragraph3

Connect to a paragraph
Connect to an entity
Disable highlights
Add to table of contents