Epress.am News from Armenia
Amnesty International published its 2011 human rights report on May 13. The 400-page document outlines the human rights situation in 157 countries and includes data from 2010.
On the section on Armenia referring to “Deaths in custody,” the report notes that the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, following its visit to the country in Sept., expressed concern about ill-treatment and beatings of detainees and prisoners, as well as being concerned over detainees being pressured in order to extract confessions:
“In April, Vahan Khalafyan died in hospital hours after being detained at the police precinct in Charentsavan on charges of theft. The authorities claimed that he had stabbed himself after being ill-treated by police officers but his family disputed the suicide account. In November, two police officers were sentenced for abuse of official authority, which allegedly caused the suicide; one to eight years’ imprisonment and his subordinate to two years’ suspended sentence,” notes the report which also covered areas such as impunity, freedom of expression, violence against women and girls and prisoners of conscience.
On Impunity: At the end of the year there had still been no independent inquiry into allegations of excessive use of force against members of the public during post-election protests in 2008; no one had been brought to justice in connection with 10 deaths… that occurred during the violent demonstrations. The families of nine victims initiated proceedings against the General Prosecutor’s Office for failing to investigate the deaths. The General Jurisdiction Court dismissed their complaints and its decisions were upheld by the Appeal Court and the Supreme Court.
On Freedom of Expression: In November, Nikol Pashinyan, an opposition activist and editor-in-chief of Haykakan Zhamanak, was reportedly assaulted by unidentified men while serving a revised prison sentence of three years and 11 months. He was originally sentenced in January to seven years’ imprisonment on charges of organizing mass disorder in 2008. He continued to write articles for his newspaper while in detention. His lawyer reported that Nikol Pashinian had earlier been threatened with harm unless he stopped exposing in his newspaper allegedly corrupt practices in the penitentiary system. Following the assault, the journalist was moved to another prison.
On Violence Against Women and Girls: In March, the government set up the State Interagency Committee to Combat Gender-Based Violence following a decree by the prime minister. However, no progress had been made by the government on enacting legislation specifically addressing violence against women and the setting up of shelters, contrary to a 2009 CEDAW recommendation. There was currently only one shelter in the country, run by the Women’s Rights Centre NGO with foreign donor funding.
In October, 20-year-old Zaruhi Petrosyan, a victim of ongoing domestic violence, died, reportedly after being severely beaten by her husband and mother-in-law. According to her sister, Zaruhi Petrosyan had approached police on two occasions to report the abuse and seek help but they reportedly dismissed her case as “unimportant” and “irrelevant”. Following extensive publicity about the case, the authorities arrested her husband and charged him with “causing wilfully heavy damage to health”.
On Prisoners of Conscience: At the end of the year, 73 men were serving prison sentences for refusing to do military service on grounds of conscience. The alternative service remained under military control. In November the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights considered an appeal by the conscientious objector Vahan Bayatyan against the Court’s 2009 ruling that his right to freedom of conscience and religion had not been violated when he was convicted of evading the draft in 2002. In 2009, the Court held that the Convention did not guarantee the right of conscientious objection; a dissenting judge issued an opinion stating that the majority’s finding failed to reflect that the right to conscientious objection is almost universally accepted to be fundamental to the rights to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.
The 2011 Amnesty International report documents specific restrictions on free speech in at least 89 countries, highlights cases of prisoners of conscience in at least 48 countries, documents torture and other ill-treatment in at least 98 countries, and reports on unfair trials in at least 54 countries.
The international human rights organization will mark its 50 anniversary on May 28 this year.