Background:

On the closing session of the 1995 United Nations Conference on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, a press conference was given to outline the conference’s results, key topics and important recommendations. Roeland Böcker works for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Netherlands, and answers the questions in Dutch. He comments on the Dutch input at the conference.

Side A:

During this press conference on the Ninth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, questions were answered by Mr. Giorgio Giacomelli, Secretary-General of this Congress, General Ḥassan Al-Alfy, the Egyptian Minister of Interior (1993-1997) and the Assistant of the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Mr. Giacomelli expressed his satisfaction of the success of the Congress and the Minister of Interior emphasized that the most important aspects of the Congress is how the connection was made between terrorism and organized crime. Several Egyptian and foreign journalists asked questions to get more information about the results reached by the Congress.

The heads of this press conference have identified terrorism as criminal crime and not a political one, which allows to apply extradition laws on terrorism criminals. They have also stated that several bilateral and regional conventions related to the cooperation in the field of fighting organized crimes and terrorism, were and are to be concluded.

Mr. Giacomelli explained that the Congress has adopted a new approach since it was less theoretical and more practical and solution-oriented. Therefore, the focus was not on how to reach a definition for terrorism for instance, but on how to fight against such violent crimes. A clarification was made on the fact that the Tunisian draft resolution was not rejected, parts of it were, however, added to the Ugandan draft resolution since the first was not related to terrorism issues. In addition, the Congress has taken into consideration subjects related to human rights and its application on both victims and offenders of such crimes.

Side B:

Questions were asked concerning recommendations and if the latter include sections on children and families. After the Conference, several short interviews were conducted on the role of the mass media in increasing awareness around these important topics; on the several recommendations of the Congress related to terrorism, organized crime and violence against women among others.

Roeland Böcker, working at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs in The Hague, went to Cairo because of the UN Conference.  He says that the conference is not so much about adopting new resolutions but rather focuses on exchanging information and techniques to fight crime. Böcker says the Netherlands has a lot of experience in this matter, and has a lot to teach to other countries. He says that the part of the conference that was about resolutions addressed problems like terrorism, violence against women and children, but also children who commit crime. Böcker says the resolution about terrorism in Egypt is important because in Egypt, there is a relation between organized crime and terrorism. The resolution acknowledges this important finding. The Netherlands proposed a resolution regarding the treatment of prisoners. Böcker does not think the resolution is too soft, and says that it is important to realize that the fight against crime will benefit from decent treatment of prisoners. He quotes Nelson Mandela who said that the level of development of a country cannot be derived from the way their best residents but their least ones. This is not just about the number of square meters a prisoner has, but the overall treatment. As a part of the resolution, a manual is proposed, which will not be mandatory but serves as a strong recommendation. The manual is based on the same norms and standards as those of the United Nations. The Netherlands strives for this manual to be translated into all of the languages of the United Nations, preferably or even more, and would like the book to be distributed to all of its members. Böcker says it might take a while, as the process contains many steps.

Comment by Harm van der Wilt:

In the Dutch part of side B, all of the questions were asked and answered twice for radio reporting purposes. The answer usually sounds better the second time, as Roeland Böcker answers more fluently. However, the second answer contains the same information as the first one.  For the sake of readability, I have written down the answers only once.