Meeting with the representatives of the Police station Centar

As a part of the project Coming out! Advocating protection of LGBT rights, financed by EU and implemented by Heinrich Boell Foundation, together with partner organisations The CURE Foundation and Sarajevo Open Centre, representatives of Sarajevo Open Centre, the Executive Director Saša Gavrić and Coordinator of the project Emina Bošnjak have met with the representatives of the Police station Centar: inspector Josip Bilandžija, and Himzo Hadžiabdić and Tanja Tomić, community police officers.

The topic of the meeting was the programme of the sensibilisation training for the police officers in their work with LGBT persons which is planned for the autumn and whose goal is to raise awareness of the police officers for the specific problems LGBT persons are facing when reporting the violations of their human rights. This training is one of the general trainings with public servants oriented towards raising the level of knowledge and the participation of the relevant institutions in LGBT issues, which should lead to strengthening of institutional capacities and it’s now in its planning phase.

This is a continuation of the colaboration between Sarajevo Open Centre and Ministry of Internal Affairs of Canton Sarajevo on improvement of the protection of the human rights of LGBT persons and building trust between LGBT persons and police officers. Ministry of internal affairs of Canton Sarajevo, in cooperation with Sarajevo Open Centre, has put posters in all police stations in Canton Sarajevo at the beggining of 2013. These posters are encouraging LGBT persons to report the violations of their human rights, and emphasize that the police is there to protect all the citizens regardless of their sexual orientation and gender identity.