Human Rights A representative of the Kazakh NGO Sana Sezina providing information to migrant workers of their rights at a border point with Uzbekistan. (Sana Sezin) in Central Asia, a second regional roundtable, in Almaty on 16 and 17 November, featured the exchange of good practices and experiences of government-NGO co-operation. More than 80 participants attended, including government officials, parliamentarians, experts and representatives of civil society organizations from the five Central Asian countries. The roundtable provided a peer-to-peer review of practices, mechanisms and laws that facilitate or impede government-NGO relations, and enabled participants to learn about best practices from international experience. The event concluded with the development of specific action plans by each country delegation geared toward improving mechanisms for co-operation. Participants committed themselves to follow-up at the national levels on the implementation of the action plans. ODIHR also provided support and advice to the OSCE Centre in Bishkek in the aftermath of the April and June events in Kyrgyzstan. ODIHR monitored the trial of the human rights defender Azimjan Askarov, who remained in detention at year’s end, charged with organizing mass disturbances and inciting interethnic hatred. ODIHR officials also visited imprisoned human rights defender Yevgeniy Zhovtis in Kazakhstan, a member of ODIHR’s Panel of Experts on Freedom of Assembly, who was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in 2009 for his role in an automobile accident that led to the death of a pedestrian. One focus of ODIHR’s activities was to build strong relationships with other international actors working on the creation and development of national human rights institutions. To reinforce this collaboration, an inter-institutional meeting was organized with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Council of Europe and the European Group of the International Coordination Committee of NHRIs. Acknowledging the importance for national human rights institutions in building close relationships with civil society, ODIHR undertook a survey to review the current state of affairs of the existing level of co-operation. The survey results were presented to various NHRIs at events in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Various legislative reviews of NHRI laws were undertaken with the aim of securing a strong legislative basis for the inclusion of civil society in the work of NHRIs. In cases where the NHRI has been designated as a National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) under the Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention against Torture (OPCAT), ODIHR offered assistance and expertise in developing legislation related to NPMs ODIHR Annual Report 2010 39