HCA Vanadzor lawyer: “We state: there is an atmosphere of impunity in Armenia”
17:50, February 22, 2017 | News, Other news
In 2013-2016, HCA Vanadzor submitted 40 crime reports within the citizen-police relations and not a single case of bringing a police officer to criminal responsibility was recorded.
This information was made public today during the discussion on ‘Situations of human rights violations in police-citizen relations in 2016’ held by the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor.
According to Ani Chatinyan, Lawyer at the Organization, “Considering the progress of the investigation into the criminal proceedings based on those reports, we state that in Armenia, the police actions in police-citizen legal relations receive no legal assessment; in other words, one of its main reasons is the atmosphere of impunity in Armenia.
The police know that they are free to torture people or deprive them of liberty along with violating their rights to free movement, freedom of expression and other rights as they would face no responsibility for it; in fact, they have never faced any responsibility in the past and do not face any nowadays. No police officer was held criminally liable under any of the 40 incidents we identified.”
According to Ani Chatinyan, human rights violations by the police are caused by the fact that the police officers are ignorant of the Law on Police, indisputable orders by the senior police officers and the atmosphere of impunity in RA. “These three reasons are the reasons leading to numerous violations.”