Within the framework of the project "Support to penitentiary system towards sustainable rehabilitation of violent extremist prisoners in Bosnia and Herzegovina", the final meeting of the Project’s Steering Committee (SC) was held on 7 December 2021 in Sarajevo. The meeting was attended by representatives of the Ministry of Justice of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Federation of BiH (FBiH) and Republika Srpska (RS), as well as their respective partners from entity and state penitentiaries.

The discussion focused on the analysis of the effects of the piloting phase of the VEP-specific tools and programmes conducted in three penitentiary institutions in BiH. SC members positively assessed the reliability of application of the tools in prison practice and welcomed their integration into the legislative framework by the Ministry of Justice of BiH. They further encouraged the Ministries of Justice of FBiH and RS to initiate the integration of the project results into their respective legislative frameworks, thus making them mandatory for the staff in the entity penitentiary facilities.

The SC members were also introduced to the web-based collaboration platform (BiH Penitentiary virtual Center of Excellence), which aims to improve communication, cooperation, and exchange of experiences between prison officials in the field of radicalisation prevention and treatment of VEPs. With purpose to facilitate the access to the platform, the Council of Europe has also donated 20 computers to the project beneficiaries. Striving to further improve the exchange of good practices between practitioners when dealing with VEPs, the SC members called on prison officials to actively use the newly launched platform, developed under the auspices of the project.

The Steering Committee meeting was organized within the project "Support to the penitentiary system towards sustainable rehabilitation of violent extremist prisoners in Bosnia and Herzegovina", which is funded under the Council of Europe Action Plan for Bosnia and Herzegovina 2018-2021.