Human Rights Day in Armenia: Not Much to Shout About
15:09, December 19, 2015 | News, Other news
Rights activists say the situation has got worse since the country joined a Moscow-led bloc.
The Armenian government’s respect for human rights has declined markedly since the country aligned itself firmly with Russia as part of the Eurasian Economic Union, rights defenders say.
To mark Human Rights Day on December 10, which commemorates the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, IWPR asked Armenian human rights defenders whether the shift towards Moscow had made any difference. The consensus view was that it had, and that since accession to the Eurasian bloc in January, there had been a series of grave human rights violations regarding freedom of assembly and expression, in particular.
Haykuhi Harutyunyan, head of the Protection of Rights Without Borders group, argued that the government had “relaxed” now that European integration was off the agenda, and with it close scrutiny of adherence to international human rights standards.
“The criteria that are now set for us are lower than before we joined the Eurasian Economic Union,” she told IWPR. “To achieve better results, it is necessary to make efforts that lead to qualitative change. However, if the bar is set low, you feel no obligation.”
Despite a close and long-running connection with Russia, Armenia took steps towards greater integration with the European Union a decade ago. It was part of the EU’s European Neighbourhood Policy from 2004 and the Eastern Partnership from 2009, and then began negotiations on an Association Agreement with the EU – all of which required it to modify legislation on various aspects of human rights.
Four years of talks on the Association Agreement were abruptly shelved in 2013, when President Serzh Sargsyan made the surprise announcement that Armenia would join the Customs Union, the forerunner of the Eurasian Economic Union. Armenia duly joined Russia, Belarus and Kazakstan as a founding member when the union came into being in January. (Kyrgyzstan joined in May.)
In April, the leader of an opposition movement called Constituent Parliament, Zhirair Sefilyan, was arrested with several others on suspicion of planning anti-government disturbances to coincide with the 100th-anniversary Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day later that month.
Artur Sakunts, chairman of the Vanadzor office of the Helsinki Association, says that the criminal case launched against the suspects was intended to pressure the opposition group, restrict its activities and make it more manageable. The suspects were released in early May, a few days after the New York-based Human Rights Watch issued a letter protesting against their detention.
Despite this, Sakunts said, “They continue to be treated as offenders against public order, and the criminal prosecution continues on this basis.”
In the course of an eventful year, the key event was a mass demonstration in the capital Yerevan over electricity price rises. On June 23, Armenian police used brute force to disperse protests on a central avenue. Around 240 people were detained, including journalists. More than two dozen were taken to hospital with fractures and bruises.
The police action was counterproductive as it merely galvanised the protest movement, which continued into July before President Serzh Sargsyan pledged to address the underlying concerns. (See Armenian Protests End, But is it Truce or Draw?)
Police chiefs said that one officer was charged and 12 others reprimanded over the June 23 intervention.
Harutyunyan, whose organisation is representing ten of the protesters detained and charged after the incident, said little was known about progress on any action taken against the officers concerned.
“We have no information about whether policemen have been questioned,” she said. “From photographs and video recordings, we have identified officers who are directly committing acts of violence. They are striking and dragging people.”
Harutyunyan said her organisation had offered to submit this evidence to the police’s internal investigation, but the offer was refused.
“Nothing is being done to identify the culprits,” she added.
Sakunts claims that senior police officers gave orders to destroy material that journalists gathered about the June 23 police action. He says this was both illegal and unprecedented in recent years.
Ashot Melikyan, who heads the Committee for the Protection of Freedom of Speech, says 2015 was a stressful year for the media, and official efforts to prevent material about the police action against demonstrators was a low point.
He says official claims that Armenia upholds freedom of speech are refuted by external assessments from the likes of the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the OSCE, Freedom House and others.
“Their data show that the situation really has deteriorated, and that respect for freedom of speech and for the activities of journalists has declined,” Melikyan said.
He noted that journalists were also targets while covering the December 6 referendum on constitutional change. He said there were two cases of assault and 11 where journalists were obstructed in the course of their reporting.
“The prosecution service and police have been active in responding to media reports of abuses,” he said. “But I have no confidence that this process will be supervised. Most importantly, I will have no confidence in the results and the consequences.”
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has criticised the conduct of the referendum. It said voter lists contained the names of people who were deceased or abroad, votes were “bought” on a large scale, and “carousel voting”, where people go from one polling station to another to cast multiple ballots, occured.