Epress.am News from Armenia
Several inmates in Yerevan’s Nubarashen prison committed acts of self-harm on January 20, after prison officers attacked them with batons. The officers wanted to transfer the prisoners from their cells on the first floor to ones “with better conditions” on the fifth. The prisoners, however, refused to obey the order, insisting that the cells on the fifth floor are actually in a dilapidated state, A1+ was informed by the prisoners themselves and their relatives.
“… I’m not serving a life sentence, but [prison officials] tell me I have to go and live on the fifth floor with lifers. Why should I live in such bad conditions? Let them repair [the cells]; then I’ll go live there. That’s when [the officers], some 50 of them, come at us with batons…” Armen Hakobyan, a prisoner who has been taken to the Erebuni hospital after hurting his own neck in protest of the transfer, recounts in a video published by A1+.
According to the website, the issue arose after the office of the Human Rights Ombudsman issued its annual report on the implementation of the prisoners’ human rights and freedoms. A monitoring carried out by the Ombudsman’s staff had shown that some of the cells in Nubarashen prison were damp, and it was recommending that the inmates are transferred to other cells.
The prisoners’ relatives said in a conversation with A1+ that the inmates had initially been told that they were being transferred to newly repaired cells; in reality, however, the state of the cells was “unspeakable.”
“The window is small, the walls are destroyed, the is sink rusty, and rusty water is flowing from the faucet,” a relative of one of the prisoners said.
“The guys say the cell is not even suitable for a pig to live in. They told the [prison authorities], ‘Repair the cell, or give us until February 5 to repair it, and then we’ll move.’ That’s how the conflict began. It’s true that the cells on the first floor are damp, but they are at least in a normal condition,” another prisoner’s relative said, refusing to be named for fear of causing problems to the imprisoned relative.
The Nubarashen officials, however, rejected the prisoners’ proposal, while the inmates who refused to leave their cells were “taught a lesson” with batons. The inmates subsequently committed acts of self-harm, and three of the them have been taken to the Erebuni hospital as a result.
“One of them hurt himself in the stomach with a knife, the other – in the neck and arms… It’s just awful,” a relative said, expressing a concern that the prisoners would again be subjected to violence once they are back in Nubarashen.
A spokesperson for the Ombudsman’s office told A1+ that the report has already been registered and the staff would visit the prison as soon as possible. Nevertheless, prisoner Armen Hakobyan’s wife, Armine Sahakyan, told the website that the Ombudsman’s office has failed to effectively act on all her previous appeals. “The claimed [they could do nothing] on a non-working day. But what does it matter? Something could have happened to one of the prisoners on Monday… They do not actually defend buy violate human rights.”
In response to an A1+ inquiry, Nubarashen authorities, for their part, insisted that the information on the use of violence against the inmates did not correspond to reality.
“During the transfer to other floors, the prisoners refused to obey the lawful demands of the prison officers and resorted to self-harm,” a statement by Nubarashen officials said. It added that the group carrying out public monitoring of Armenia’s penitentiary institutions have visited the cells above-mentioned cells and expressed no objections in connection with the detention conditions there.