Human Rights  •  29 FREEDOM OF RELIGION OR BELIEF IN UKRAINE ODIHR delivered a series of activities as part of a project on Promoting Security for Religious Communities and Others in the Regions of Ukraine. The project focuses on two pilot regions of Ukraine (Vinnitsa/Cherkassy and Odessa) by building capacity of civil society, religious or belief communities and relevant state institutions on freedom of religion or belief and hate crimes, and by promoting dialogue between religious or belief communities and between these communities and the state. In 2015, ODIHR organized six seminars on freedom of religion or belief and hate crimes, two national events on freedom of religion or belief, two regional dialogue roundtables, and one study visit of Ukrainian police officers and prosecutors to Warsaw. A total of 486 participants (301 men, 185 women) took part in these activities. 6 SEMINARS 2 NATIONAL EVENTS 2 REGIONAL ROUNDTABLES 1 STUDY VISIT 486 PARTICIPANTS 185 women 301 men The Serbian translation of the document was presented at a meeting in Belgrade organized by ODIHR on 16 November, in collaboration with the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia and with the support of the OSCE Mission to Serbia. HUMAN RIGHTS CAPACITY BUILDING ODIHR provided training and capacity building to state and non-state actors, with a view to promoting full implementation of OSCE human dimension commitments. From 29 June to 3 July, in partnership with the European Network of National Human Rights Institutions (ENNHRI) and the University of Warsaw, ODIHR organized the second NHRI Academy. The event brought together 26 members of NHRI staffs (18 women, eight men) from across the OSCE area. It provided practical training to senior and mid-level staff on how to address particular challenges and opportunities that NHRIs face in their work, with a focus on gender mainstreaming, human rights monitoring, and co-operation among and independence of NHRIs. The Academy also created an environment for sharing good practices between peers, and a platform to establish a common understanding for joint work and interventions by NHRIs. As part of its activities to support civil society in Ukraine, ODIHR delivered four human rights monitoring training sessions, in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa and Lviv, respectively, for Ukrainian human rights activists. Ninety-six participants (37 men, 59 women) took part in the sessions. Of these, 42 representatives from 12 Ukrainian civil society organizations (28 women and 14 men) were further selected and trained in November to implement small human rights monitoring projects. “ The respect of human rights in the fight against terrorism is not only a legal obligation, it is a precondition for counter-terrorism measures to be successful. These courses provided participants with an opportunity to understand the shortand long-term negative effects of human rights violations on the effectiveness of counter-terrorism measures.” Lucile Sengler, Adviser on Anti-Terrorism Issues at ODIHR, 6 November 2015, Madrid, Spain