Activities Related to Threats Posed by Criminal Activity Criminal Investigations and Analysis In its Opinion on the Draft Amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code of the Republic of Armenia published on 15 July17, ODIHR provided a series of concrete recommendations to guarantee the impartiality and independence of attesting witnesses during criminal investigations and to ensure that evidence is not tampered with or fabricated during the course of an investigation. Counter-Terrorism & VERLT On 17 and 18 November, ODIHR organized a training session on Complying With Human Rights Standards and Effectively Countering Terrorism in Madrid, Spain. The session gathered 20 counter-terrorism law enforcement officers (16 men and 4 women) from the Spanish National Police, Guardia Civil, Intelligence Centre against Terrorism and Organized Crime (CITCO), penitentiary institutions, armed forces and the regional police. The training followed an interactive and practice-oriented approach, promoting discussion on the inextricable link between human rights compliance and the effectiveness of policing in the day-today work of participants. On 7 and 8 September, ODIHR participated in and moderated one session of the “OSCE-wide Expert Workshop Freedom of Expression on the Internet and Countering Violent Extremism and Radicalization that Lead to Terrorism (VERLT)” jointly organized with TNTD/ATU, the OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina and the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media in Sarajevo. In 2016, ODIHR collaborated with TNTD/ATU to prepare the Preliminary Opinion on the Draft Amendments to the Legal Framework on Countering Extremism and Terrorism in the Republic of Kazakhstan18, which was published on 6 October. The Preliminary Opinion notes that the legal definition of “terrorism” and so called “extremism”-related offences in the Criminal Code of Kazakhstan would benefit from further amendments in order to comply with the principles of legal certainty, foreseeability and specificity under criminal law, and to ensure that only “violent extremism” is criminalized. It also concluded that the draft amendments introduced new provisions which have the potential to restrict freedom of 138 17 Available at http://www.legislationline.org/documents/id/20011. 18 OSCE/ODIHR Opinion on the Draft Amendments to the Legal Framework on Countering Extremism and Terrorism in the Republic of Kazakhstan (6 October 2016), available at http://www.legislationline.org/documents/id/20060 (English version) and http://www.legislationline.org/ru/documents/id/20061 (Russian version). movement, the choice of one’s residence, and the right to freedom of expression, particularly in terms of access to the Internet and other communication tools, as well as the right to freedom of religion or belief. In 2016, ODIHR and the Strategic Police Matters Unit (SPMU) of the OSCE Secretariat’s Transnational Threats Department developed a draft training programme on the basis of their joint manual on Human Rights in CounterTerrorism Investigations19 and piloted its delivery in two training sessions in Tirana on 17 and 18 October, and in Madrid on 17 and 18 November. The two training courses gathered 32 counter-terrorism practitioners from Albania and Spain (28 men and 4 women), including from the national police forces and intelligence services. To tailor the delivery of the two sessions to the local context and needs, ODIHR and the TNTD/SPMU carried out pre-training assessments in Tirana and Madrid, from 4 to 6 September and on 10 and 11 October, respectively. The training programme, to be finalized in 2017, includes a training curriculum and a trainer’s manual, and focuses on the different sequences of counterterrorism investigations and their potential impact on human rights and effective policing. On 22 and 23 November, a technical expert meeting on “Gender Mainstreaming in Operational Responses to Violent Extremism and Radicalization that Lead to Terrorism” was held by TNTD/ATU in co-operation with ODIHR in Vienna. The meeting brought together more than 80 law enforcement officials, government representatives and civil society actors from across the OSCE region to obtain expert recommendations on steering OSCE activities to raise gender awareness in States’ efforts to prevent and counter VERLT. On 24 November, ODIHR delivered a presentation by videoconference to an event on “Foreign Terrorist Fighters – Challenges for South-Eastern Europe: Integrative and Complementary Approach to Counter-Terrorism and Violent Extremism” jointly organized by the Regional Arms Control Verification and Implementation Assistance (RACVIAC) Centre for Security and Cooperation and the OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina in Rakitje, Croatia. On 29 and 30 November, ODIHR participated in and moderated one session of a national seminar on “Countering Violent Extremism and Radicalization that Lead to Terrorism: a Community-Policing Approach” organized by the OSCE PCUz in Tashkent. 19 Available at: http://www.osce.org/odihr/108930.