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As reported earlier, HCA Vanadzor protects the violated rights of K. S., convict at Vanadzor penitentiary facilities.

Note that the Group of Observers Monitoring the RA MoJ Penitentiary Facilities and Agencies found that convict K. S. suffered continuous pressure by a penitentiary officer.

Then, the Group of Observers submitted an application to the RA Ministry of Justice requesting to transfer the convict to another penitentiary facilities for security reasons. However, the Ministry of Justice did not meet the request above.

Based on the crime report of September 12, 2015, the initiation of criminal proceedings was rejected. After appealing the decree above to upper agencies, on October 9, 2015, the RA Prosecutor General’s Office Department for High-Profile Cases prosecutor E. Aramyan decreed to annul the decree of September 29, 2015 on refusing initiation of criminal proceedings and initiate criminal proceedings under Article 309(1) of the RA Criminal Code.

The criminal proceedings were discontinued on December 9, 2015 due to lack of corpus delicti. Also, the investigator decreed not to initiate criminal prosecution against the persons who had submitted the crime report due to the absence of corpus delicti of false crime reporting under Article 333(1) of the RA Criminal Code.

On December 21, 2015, HCA Vanadzor filed a complaint with the RA Prosecutor General G. Kostanyan to annul the decree on discontinuing the criminal proceedings and give a legal assessment to initiation of criminal prosecution against the human rights defenders in a capacity of witnesses under the corpus delicti of Article 333 /false crime reporting/ of the RA Criminal Code by the investigator responsible for the proceedings.

By its decree of January 8, 2016, the RA Prosecutor General’s Office dismissed the Organization’s appeal above on the grounds of its baselessness.

As for the criminal prosecution against the human rights defenders under false crime reporting, the decree of the Prosecutor General’s Office reads as follows: “In this regard, the preliminary investigation agency gave a proper legal assessment to the prima facie false crime reporting since under the proceedings, evidence were obtained rejecting the information on the circumstances provided by Arayik and Ofelya Zalyans and Artur Sakunts; therefore, the complainants’ conclusion on this part is also baseless.”

HCA Vanadzor appealed the RA Prosecutor General’s Decree of January 8, 2016 to the General Jurisdiction Court of Arabkir and Kanaker-Zeytun administrative districts, Yerevan, RA.

In this regard, it should be borne in mind that according to Article 12 of the UN Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms:

1. Everyone has the right, individually and in association with others, to participate in peaceful activities against violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms.
2. The State shall take all necessary measures to ensure the protection by the competent authorities of everyone, individually and in association with others, against any violence, threats, retaliation, de facto or de jure adverse discrimination, pressure or any other arbitrary action as a consequence of his or her legitimate exercise of the rights referred to in the present Declaration.
3. In this connection, everyone is entitled, individually and in association with others, to be protected effectively under national law in reacting against or opposing, through peaceful means, activities and acts, including those by omission, attributable to States that result in violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms, as well as acts of violence perpetrated by groups or individuals that affect the enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms.