VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

The Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs encouraged the ratification of the UN Convention against Torture in ASEAN countries and the Asia-Pacific region through the 2019 Regional Convention against Torture Initiative (CTI) Seminar. "Indonesia is one of the initiators of the Convention against Torture Initiative at the high level meeting of the Human Rights Council in Geneva in 2014," Director General of Multilateral Cooperation at Ministry of Foreign Affairs Febrian Ruddyard, while delivering a keynote address at the Regional Seminar of CTI 2019 in Bali, as conveyed through written statements, Wednesday. The three-day seminar inviting ASEAN countries and the Asia Pacific region was aimed at increasing the capacity of participating countries in ratifying and implementing the United Nations Convention against Torture. The seminar facilitated participating countries to share experiences, best practices, and challenges in developing and implementing the principles of the Convention against Torture into the statutory regulations and institutional system of national law enforcement. Indonesia has actively carried out various activities that can encourage the realization of the CTI vision. The activities included a capacity building workshop related to the Anti-Torture Convention organized by the ASEAN Intergovernmental Human Rights Commission and an inter-regional event at Fes in 2017 held with Morocco. Both these efforts encouraged an increase in the number of countries in the region willing to attend the Convention against Torture Initiative seminar. The initiative is looking at universal ratification by 2024. "Despite all its challenges, Indonesia is fully convinced that the world will witness the universal ratification of the Convention against Torture in 2024," Ruddyard said. The seminar was held in collaboration with the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the CTI Secretariat, the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Swiss Embassy in Jakarta, and the Association for the Prevention of Torture.//antara.