RA Defense Ministry states officially that there are no Azerbaijani captives and corpses in the Republic of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh Republic
17:47, May 26, 2016 | News, Own news | Rights of Soldiers/Recruits, The Rights of Conflict Victims | Armed Forces
Photo by mil.am
Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Vanadzor Office carries on collecting data about the missing persons, prisoners of war and those who perished during the hostilities of April 2016 as well as the causes and circumstances of their death and missing.
Under the fact-finding mission, the Organization was informed by a letter of May 18, 2016 that there were no Azerbaijani captives or corpses in the Republic of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh Republic following the April hostilities.
As for the numerical data of the conscript or contract servicemen of the RA armed forces and NKR defense army and civilians perished, wounded or missing during the same period as well as the receipt of official information about the causes and circumstances of their death, wounds and going missing, the RA Ministry of Defense urges to obtain such information from the data reported by the RA and NKR mass media instead of providing such data in an official letter.
At the same time, referring to Article 8(1) of the RA Law on Freedom of Information, the Ministry states that the agency in charge of the information refuses to provide information if it violates the privacy of a person or discloses data requiring limited access due to professional activities /medical secrecy/. Also, with reference to Article 3(1)(14) of the RA Law on Protection of Personal Data, the representative of the RA Defense Ministry notes that the information concerning the state of health of a person is considered personal data of a special category and according to Article 12(1) of the same Law, processing personal data of special category without the person’s consent is prohibited, except for the cases when the processing of such data is expressly provided for by law.
However, it should be noted that the Organization did not request information by specific persons, and therefore a person and his/her state of health could not be identified in any way. Moreover, such information, particularly that about wounded persons considered confidential information by the logic of the RA Ministry of Defense, was repeatedly disseminated by the media and official sources of the Ministry. Therefore, the failure to provide the information requested by the Organization is incomprehensible and illogical.