E/CN.4/2004/56/Add.3 page 47 289. The international community now can openly visit the penitentiary establishments of Uzbekistan. Organizations such as UNICEF, USAID, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have been granted access to places of detention for the purposes of monitoring. 290. An agreement between the Government of Uzbekistan and ICRC on humanitarian activity concerning detainees and convicts was signed in 2001. In 2003 groups of ICRC delegates made 30 visits to penal institutions administered by the Uzbek Ministry of Internal Affairs (compared with four visits in 2001 and five in 2002). Additionally, more than 10 institutions were visited more than once in the course of the year. In the past three years, out of a total of 21 closed colonies (ordinary, strict and special regimes), ICRC delegates have visited 12 colonies, 12 remand units and 7 prisons. Two groups of delegates were scheduled to visit penal institution No. 64/IZ-10 in Fergana (third visit) and No. 64/IZ-11 in Kokand (first visit) after 27 November 2003. 291. In 2001, Uzbekistan joined the WHO project “Healthcare in prisons”. With WHO assistance, there was a three-day international seminar for medical workers of the penitentiary system on the treatment of HIV/AIDS in places of detention. Representatives of penitentiaries in Uzbekistan took part in the seventh and eighth annual meetings of the “Healthcare in prison” project and in the international conference on health issues for juveniles in prisons, held in Vienna and Edinburgh, respectively. In the context of testing a tuberculosis control programme in the penitentiary system, the Tashkent offices of WHO and the German Development Bank have enlisted the support of specialist suppliers. In this connection, the WHO regional representative for Central Asia and other foreign representatives have visited penal institution No. 64/18 in Tashkent on three occasions to assess the readiness for launching the project. 292. Since 2002 close cooperation with the OSCE Centre in Tashkent has been ongoing. It initiated and began the implementation of a programme aimed at improving detention conditions in Uzbekistan with special attention to the protection of human rights (the project budget for the 1½-year project is 150,000 euros). In 2002 a training session for the staff of the Tashkent city colony for women was conducted. Thanks to the assistance of OSCE, staff members of some penitentiary establishments of Uzbekistan took part in an OSCE meeting on the human dimension in Vienna and in international conferences held in Almaty and Dushanbe on issues relating to the transfer of criminal punishment systems to the competence of the Ministry of Justice. Under the OSCE Centre project to institute training programmes for prison staff, regional and international seminars for prisoner officers were held in Tashkent, Navoi and Karshi in August 2003. In preparing for and organizing these seminars, representatives of the OSCE Centre in Tashkent and experts from the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) visited six penal institutions, namely No. 64/1 and No. 64/ZVK in Zangiata district, Tashkent oblast, No. 64/IZ-7 in Kattakurgan, No. 64/46 in Navoi, No. 64/51 in Kasan and No. 64/33 in Karshi. 293. Representatives of diplomatic missions regularly visit detention facilities. For example, representatives from embassies of EU member States (Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, France and the United Kingdom) have paid visits to penal institution No. 64/18 in Tashkent and penal institution No. 64/71 in Jaslyk, during which they held confidential interviews with individual