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Deputy Interior Minister: 3500 people have been voluntarily admitted to the community councils in Azerbaijan â€“ EXCLUSIVE

Deputy Interior Minister: 3500 people have been voluntarily admitted to the community councils in Azerbaijan â€“ <font color=red>EXCLUSIVE </font>

06 May 2011 14:34 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Hafiz Heydarov â€“ APA. â€œCommunity councils have been functioning under police offices of cities, regions of Azerbaijan for two years. 3500 people have been voluntarily admitted to the community councils up to now. The great majority of the members of the community councils are intellectuals, elderly people, persons working in educational, healthcare, culture, art, sport establishments,â€ Deputy Interior Minister of Azerbaijan, Police Lieutenant-General Oruj Zalov told APA while answering questions about the community councils under the police offices.

Deputy Minister said the members of the Community Council arrange meetings of the local residents with the police officers, â€œpoliceâ€™s open doorâ€ days. They participate in holding sport competitions, other competitions, learning the public opinion about the activity of the police, establishing relations with media, strengthening police-citizen, police-society relations. Oruj Zalov said efficient investigation of the citizensâ€™ appeals to the police also paved the way for the improvement of the mutual relations.
â€œAs the peopleâ€™s confidence in the police increased, the number of the citizens appealing to the police increased by 52% in the past year compared with the previous years,â€ he said.

Deputy Minister said a part of the complaints sent to the police offices is connected with the domestic disputes.
â€œCommunity councils played decisive role in solving the domestic disputes.

The deputy minister said the Community Councilâ€™s duties include correction of indocile children, preventive interviews with the parents who donâ€™t care and control their children, organizing different events at the educational centers for the under ages.

The deputy minister said according to NGO Forum and Internet opinion polls in 2009-2010 most of the people positively appreciated the activity of the Community Council under police. â€œUnfortunately some â€œpolice expertsâ€ try to compare the community council with the Soviet-time militia, but I recommend them to learn the experience of leading European countries. The community councils were established on the basis of the model of Londonâ€™s metropolitan police of 1829, which works now as the Community Policing. This project was founded by Sir Robert Peel and was widely implemented in many European countries, the US and Canada in the 20th century. It has been implemented in Turkey as â€œToplum Destekli Polislikâ€ (Community Policing).

The experience of more than 20 countries, including the European countries was learned in 2006 and on the initiative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs supported by the OSCE Office in Baku, the project of Community Policing started to be implemented. The experiment gave good results. The community councils were established near the divisional police chiefs in 2009â€. Zalov said the community councils were called differently in different countries, but they have common goals to strengthen relations and confidence between the community and police to serve the people.