Arthur Sakunts, “Violence implementers are encouraged”
12:57, April 11, 2013 | News | Right to be free from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment | Police
“As a rule, violence, beatings, detention for more than 3 hours, exerting of psychological pressure, failure to provide legal assistance and ensure a defender, forcing to false testimony has been common working style of the Police”, highlights Arthur Sakunts, Chairman of Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Vanadzor and adds that Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Vanadzor has received 33 applications since 2011, however, no criminal case has been initiated based on any of the reported facts.
“Police officers on operative cases implement obvious unlawfulness, they torture the citizens, and later their chiefs are transferred to other departments and take up high-rank positions. It appears that the implementation of violence is encouraged in our country”, mentions Sakunts and adds that the quality of the RA Police work performance is assessed by the number of revealed crimes, “and when they fail to achieve the planned outcomes, the missing number is filled with the drug addicts and former convicts enrolled in their “black list”.
According to Sakunts, Special Investigation Service is also engaged in inaction and does nothing and intentionally conducts the investigation in a way that the cases are not revealed but rather to conceal them.
“There should be an independent internal mechanism for appeals, that is to say, the state is obliged to determine an oversight over the actions of the police officers, that institute should have such an advanced mechanism for the efficient examination of appeals, so that the risks of torture towards the citizens decreases. Today when the citizens enter the court with a claim on police torture case, in that case also, the court does not grant the tortured citizen with appropriate attention”.
The great majority of people, subjected to violence, are so much dependent on their employer in order to earn and cover their everyday expenses, that under the fear of becoming unemployed they reconcile with this kind of inhuman treatment”, mentions Chairman of Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Vanadzor and brings the following example: the son of a tortured citizen applied to them, but after some time denied and said there was no need to continue the case, while, similar cases are common.
Sakunts does not see any possibility of torture prevention by the police officers, apart from the fact that the issue of the tortured citizens should be raised regularly.