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12. Dissemination, media
Establishing the Department and hiring more staff members caused some changes in the
organizational structure of my Office, too. Having laid the legal foundation, staff members of the
Department with degrees in law and psychology held internal trainings for the staff of the other
organizational units on the working methods and attitudes of the Department.
The internal trainings concentrated on the following topics:
The concepts of torture and detention;
The psychology of OPCAT NPM-type hearings and feedback (frameworks,
consistencies, difficulties);
The distinction between post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) and cumulative
trauma disorder (CTD), their relevance and checklist;
Personal perception – distortion mechanisms, promoting objectivity;
Violence among detainees (case study);
Foucault’s concept of torture;
The Lucifer effect: understanding how good people turn evil;
Roles in children communities: bullies, victims, bystanders.
According to the UN Guidelines on National Preventive Mechanisms,123 sharing the spirit,
working methods of the OPCAT, as well as the experiences gained during its operation, is a
fundamental duty, since it can contribute to the prevention of torture and ill-treatment.
The activities of the NPM imply the existence of a direct relationship between the NPM and
wider sections of society. This relationship is very complex since our activities are of interest to a
wide variety of the actors of public administration, representatives of civil society organizations,
researchers and clients.
In 2014, in order to promote communication and meet international expectations, the Office set
up the NPM’s homepage that can be reached in Hungarian and in English on the Office’s
website (http://www.ajbh.hu/opcat). Visitors can find on the homepage basic information on
the NPM, instructions on how to turn to the NPM, important information for the institutions
concerned and materials for various target groups, including children. On the homepage one can
also follow NPM-related events, e.g., visits, meetings of the CCB. Visitors can also find on the
homepage the original Hungarian version and the shortened English version of the NPM’s
reports. The GRRC report’s full English text is also available. The NPM’s homepage can also be
reached from the Subcommittee’s website124. Anyone can directly contact the NPM using the
information found on the homepage.
It is extremely important that all NPM-related information could be directly reached also from
the places of detention; that is why we had prepared an information leaflet for the “dialog with
the authorities” meeting held in late 2014. The leaflet was distributed to all those concerned.
These shortened information materials were distributed during the visits, too.
On December 17, 2014, I held a press conference on the launching of the NPM on January 01,
2015. The NPM’s activities received wide press coverage in 2015. Various press materials
covering the individual visits are listed in the schedule below:
123
124
See Clause 31 of the Guidelines on national preventive mechanisms, United Nations CAT/OP/12/5
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/OPCAT/Pages/NationalPreventiveMechanisms.aspx
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