A group of human rights organizations issued a statement
15:29, July 26, 2016 | Announcements, Joint
A group of human rights organizations issued a statement on the actions of the law enforcement agencies in recent days.
The Statement particularly reads that on July 17, early in the morning, the seizure of the Patrol and Guard Service premises by Sasna Tsrer Group was followed by protests at Liberty Square in Yerevan and then in Khorenatsi Street during which the RA police abused its powers and took its traditional brutal, violent and provocative actions against participants of the peaceful assembly and the population.
On the very first day, a large number of peaceful assembly participants were apprehended without any legal grounds from Liberty Square in Yerevan; furthermore, such actions were coupled with violence, jostle, swear words and ill-treatment, including against women. Following its practices, the RA police also involved in such brutal actions plain-clothes police officers without any identification marks on their clothes.
The RA police and RA National Security Service officers also visit and search the apartments of the families of ‘Sasna Tsrer’ group members, intimidate their wives, children and other family members, threaten them by arrest and other actions. Some of them were apprehended forcibly by the police to various police divisions without relevant documents and were detained there for over 3 hours and suffered inhuman treatment and mockery there.
The most ridiculous thing about this is that on July 22, civil activist and cultural worker Ani Navasardyan, one of the active participants of the peaceful assembly, was also apprehended by decree of the SIS. Later, she was apprehended again from the yard of her apartment and was arrested on suspicion of inciting mass riots. There are numerous online and other videos of Ani Navasardyan telling what happened to her and also showing bruises and injuries on her body.
The ‘Coalition to Stop Violence against Women’ is deeply concerned and condemns these illegal practices by the RA Police and the RA National Security Service, which also have a political implication. These actions aim to create an atmosphere of fear and horror among the public and particularly women and girls to restrict their right to attend peaceful assemblies and protests, make public speeches and express their views.
We hereby demand that civil activist Ani Navasardyan and the other citizens arrested in the past few days are immediately released and the police officers who exerted violence and inhuman treatment against her and the other citizens are held liable and dismissed from the system.”
‘Coalition to Stop Violence against Women’, including:
‘Women’s Resource Center’ NGO;
‘Women’s Rights Center’ NGO;
‘Society without Violence’ NGO;
‘Public Information and Need of Knowledge’ NGO;
‘Sexual Assault Crisis Center’ NGO;
‘Real World, Real People’ NGO
The NGOs below joined the Statement:
‘Sakharov Armenian Human Rights Centre’ NGO;
‘Ecological Academy’ NGO;
Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor;
‘Young Engineers Association’ NGO
50/50 Civil Initiative