Every month, the National Human Rights Commission of Mongolia has been publicly reporting about the work activities taken by the Commission. The Commission held a press conference on 11 November 2013 and Chief Commissioner Mr. Byambadorj Jamsran has provided an overview of the Commission’s work activities of last month to journalists and answered their questions.

The Commission carries out a wide range of activities including receiving and resolving the complaints lodged by the citizens and taking measures to eliminate human rights violations, providing a legal advice, conduct inquiries and organizing human rights training.

The Commission receives human rights complaints via telephone (+976-51-262786), or through its website (www.mn-nhrc.org), or in person. The Commission received 45 complaints last month and 11 of them resolved in accordance with law, and 34 complaints are being investigated.   

The Commission undertook a comprehensive advocacy activities aimed at eliminating torture issue and it was one of the biggest activities the Commission has taken last month. Experts from Association for Prevention of Torture, Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights and National Preventive Mechanism of Switzerland arrived in Mongolia and conducted “National Preventive Mechanism” training for staff of the Commission. The experts were involved in the “Cooperation on prevention of torture” discussion and it included over 100 law enforcement officials as well as social workers, psychiatrics, psychologists, and teachers to discuss about prevention of torture.   

The Commission has signed a Memorandum of Understanding on “Eliminating torture” with six organizations, namely the General Police Department, National Investigation Authority, Central Intelligence Agency, Office of the State Prosecutor General and General Authority for Court Decision Enforcement. It has been successful as a result of cooperative activities in order to eliminate and prevent of torture issues in Mongolia through conducting a wide range of activities.There has been a progress as an effort of the Commission’s partnership organizations such as state organizations, civil society and international organizations, however, there are still some issues that need to be improved and elaborated. The discussion has focused on the right to be free from torture and the relevant stakeholders shared information on their activities taken on prevention of torture according to the MoU.   

Within the framework of delivering the human rights education, the Commission has conducted human rights training for over 30 organizations covering 330 people based on request from organizations as well as the Commission’s work plan. For instance, the training was conducted for judges, police officers, prosecutor’s officers and staff of court decision implementation bodies of Dornogovi province, and  for students of Social and Science School of National University of Mongolia, people with disabilities, students of Academy for State Management, and staff of Governor Secretariat of Bayanzurkh district.  A training-for-trainers’ was held for local citizens’ representative for each province.

In addition, the Commission has publicly announced a tender for research team which further undertakes an analysis on implementation of Law on Promotion of Gender Equality and received a proposal from 10 organizations and selected a research team now.

The Commission and the Open Society Forum in Mongolia have decided to jointly run “Let’s talk about human rights” morning informal meeting every month. The first meeting was held on 24 October 2013 and information and ideas were shared among 24 representatives from civil societies working in human rights field.

It has been two years since the Commission has been conducting human rights public lectures in cooperation with the Open Society Forum and the public lecture was held with a topic of “Principle of equal rights and prohibition of discrimination” in October 2013.