On 4 November 2014, the 9th Regional Workshop for Judges, Prosecutors, and Police Officers on Effectively Countering Terrorism in South Asia concluded after three full days. Jointly hosted by the Government of the Republic of the Maldives and the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED), the workshop was organized by the Global Center on Cooperative Security, with financial support from the Governments of Denmark and the United States of America.
In regions connected by history, kinships, and shared borders, what happens in one State will impact its neighbours. Terrorism, therefore, affects not just individual States but entire regions. South Asia is one of the regions that have greatly suffered the consequences of terrorism. As part of an effort to promote greater regional cooperation to combat terrorism and other forms of serious crime, CTED has helped to organize a series of workshops that have been held throughout the region for the past six years.
In the Maldives, police, prosecutors, and judges from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka attended the three-day workshop, the purpose of which was to explore specific issues identified by the participants that present the greatest opportunity to enhance efforts to combat terrorism.
Representing the Government of the Maldives at the opening session was Secretary of Defence Colonel (retired) Mohamed Nazim.
Head of the CTED Delegation was Chief of Section Elizabeth Joyce, who underlined that capacity-building initiatives such as this workshop “provide an important platform for regional counterparts to share their experiences, lessons learned and good practices, to discuss key challenges, and most importantly – to develop habits of cooperation.”
Over the three days, participants were engaged in numerous interactive discussions, facilitated by resource persons from Australia, Nepal, the UK, and the United States of America, and which included a case study in which the judges, prosecutors and police officers, respectively, had to present and explain their positions at the end of the workshop.