Police Commissioner Brigadier General Sitiveni Qiliho made it clear today that they are committed to upholding fundamental human rights in line with international laws and best practices.

While speaking at a two day human rights training for Police at Tanoa Plaza Hotel in Suva today, Qiliho stressed that they remain committed to strengthening the management, reporting, investigation and prosecution of breaches of human rights by Police officers.

He says since 2019, the organization by working with its law and justice stakeholders has adopted in-house measures, polices, and directives to address human rights abuse.

Qiliho says they have also introduced internal policies and directives that strengthen early access to justice of arrested persons.

The Regional Representative of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights for the Pacific Heike Alefsen says they believe that continuous structural and institutional reforms of any police service are necessary and should be supported with capacity building, structural legislative changes with other types of policy changes situated in much broader context not just within the Fiji Police Force but in the overall environment of law policy and societal changes.

During the 34th Session of the Universal Periodic Review of Fiji held in Geneva in 2019, the Commissioner of Police informed the session of the organization’s commitment of establishing a dedicated Police Human Rights Cell to independently investigate and report on complaints against Police officers on the breach of human rights.

The objective of the training is to ensure a broader understanding of professionalism and use of human rights mechanisms in investigations, provide a broader understanding of the key obligations under international human rights law, consult senior police officers and Human Rights Cell on the National Action Plan on Eliminating Violence against women and girls and to introduce the Terms of Reference of the Human Rights Cell with the senior management and ensure its operationalization within the Fiji Police Force.

The training ends tomorrow.