{"id":277263,"date":"2017-01-13T13:16:55","date_gmt":"2017-01-13T09:16:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/epress.am\/?p=277263"},"modified":"2017-01-13T13:17:57","modified_gmt":"2017-01-13T09:17:57","slug":"armenian-activists-forced-psychiatric-commitment-not-unlawful-officials-claim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2017\/01\/13\/armenian-activists-forced-psychiatric-commitment-not-unlawful-officials-claim.html","title":{"rendered":"Armenian Activist&#8217;s Forced Psychiatric Commitment &#8216;Not Unlawful,&#8217; Officials Claim"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Armenia&#8217;s law enforcement authorities have decided not to initiate criminal proceedings against the staff of Yerevan&#8217;s Nubarashen psychiatric clinic over political analyst and founder of the Institute for Democracy and Human Rights NGO (IDHR) <span style=\"color: #003366;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #003366;\" href=\"http:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2016\/06\/03\/human-rights-activist-alleges-torture-and-harassment-at-yerevan-psychiatric-clinic.html\">Armine Arakelyan<\/a><\/strong><\/span>&#8216;s allegations of torture and harassment at the clinic, the Helsinki Citizens&#8217; Assembly Vanadzor office (HCAV) reported today.<\/p>\n<p>Erebuni and Nubarashen district senior investigator G. Matevosyan justified his December 29 decision not to prosecute the hospital staff by citing lack of criminal intent and insisting that investigators haven&#8217;t found evidence to prove that Arakelyan was indeed subjected to beatings at the psychiatric facility. The investigator also said that tying Arakelyan up and taking her to a psychiatric ward against her will was not unlawful since \u201cshe had displayed aggressive behaviour.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to the HCAV statement, Arakelyan&#8217;s lawyer, Arayik Zalyan, has repeatedly appealed to the investigative body with a request that the case be referred to Armenia&#8217;s Special Investigation Service, however, \u201cthe investigative authority is continuously delaying the process, thereby trying to cover up the crime.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Recall, on May 17, 2016, Armine Arakelyan got into a fountain basin at Yerevan\u2019s Republic Square and was consequently handcuffed and forcibly taken in an ambulance to the Nubarashen psychiatric clinic. In a subsequent interview with 1in.am, Arakelyan claimed that she had been subjected to mockery, beatings, torture and harassment at the hands of the clinic staff.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Investigators haven&#8217;t found evidence to prove that Arakelyan was indeed subjected to beatings at the psychiatric facility. The investigator also said that tying Arakelyan up and taking her&#8230;<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":277264,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[66056],"tags":[64713,65731,66197],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277263"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}