INDEPENDENT MEDIA CENTRE KURDISTAN

The workshop on transparency of government, given by Dutch lawyer Frank van Haren, ended in Irbil on December 21 with certificates for 29 participants. Van Haren did two workshops of 4 days each, one for journalists and one for lawyers and politicians. He ended his stay in Irbil with an evening with Kurdish judges. All participants were very enthusiastic about the content of the workshop. Van Haren expects to come back to Kurdistan to give the same workshop in Duhok later in 2009.

'States should have taxes', says Frank van Haren, trainer on the Transparency of Government workshop in Erbil, 'so the people who pay them have a right and a reason to ask something in return. That makes them more eager to check what the government is doing with their money.' That is one of the central issues Van Haren brought up during the first days of his workshop in Erbil. He is informing 15 journalists from different media Erbil in 4 days about the background of good governance and transparency of government. His main point is what is democracy, and what else is needed but elections to make it work. Later in the week Van Haren will also lead a workshop on the same subject for lawyers and politicians in Erbil. The workshops are organiazed in cooperation with the Erbil Journalists' Syndicate and the Kurdistan Organization for Civil Development (KOCD), and take place at the premises of KOCD.

IMCK has trained five new co-trainers for its workshops on basic journalism and civil journalism. Senior trainers Xdir Domle and Shwan Muhamed took three days (4-6 December 2008) to extend their knowledge on training to the new candidates. Abdullah Sabir, Nawzad Jamal, Shahnaz Zebary, Mohsin Adib and Ako Muhammed will be assistant trainers in the workshops IMCK is organizing in the coming months.

Dutch laywer Frank van Haren will provide a training to Kurdish journalists, politicians and lawyers on the principles concerning transparancy of governance. The training will be organized by IMCK in cooperation with KOCD (Kurdistan Organisation for Civil Development) in Irbil. Two workshops of 4 days each will take place between December 12 and 21 2008. Van Haren will be focusing on the use of power by politicians and statesmen, as well as abuse of this power. Political power should only be used in accordance with the purpose of its existence, and not for personal purposes. When these two collide, one should let the public interest prevail over one's personal interests. Only the law can and should give authority and legitimacy to the actions of any politician or statesmen. Also, they should be honest and transparent in their actions and interests, in order to create a trustworthy institute called 'government'. These principles will be illustrated by several examples to mak