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Lately, the law enforcement agencies have employed the vicious practices below: initiating criminal prosecution against the persons who file crime reports rather than identifying the presence or absence of corpus delicti in the situations described within such reports.
Persons filing crime reports face criminal prosecution based on the corpus delicti of false crime reporting, are involved in proceedings as witnesses and questioned. As a result, crime victims or persons aware of the crime have to withdraw their allegations about the crime in fear of arbitrary criminal prosecution against them.
Moreover, such practices by law enforcement agencies are usually peculiar to cases with officials involved as alleged offenders. This means that in such cases, the law enforcement authorities attempt to give a legal assessment to the behavior of the persons submitting the crime reports rather than the acts and actions of the alleged offenders. As a result, the crimes of public importance and those dangerous to the public receive no objective investigation, the real crimes are skillfully concealed and ignored and the alleged offenders are not held liable.
Among the cases considered by Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Vanadzor, there are also some similar cases when the investigation by competent agencies apparently targets the persons who file crime reports and witnesses rather than identifies the presence or absence of the corpus delicti outlined in the reports of the Organization’s representatives. By doing so, such agencies deliberately divert the attention from the fact of the real crime.
Hence, back on September 18, 2015, the Organization filed a crime report based on hraparak.am news website release entitled “Out of here, or you’ll lose your uterus!” Another incident with Sashik Sargsyan” (with reference to the news release). The news report above described a woman who visited the publishing house to tell about the actions of Sashik Sargsyan by particularly noting that he had used violence against a young man and then threatened an elderly woman cursing him. Instead of conducting a full and comprehensive investigation into the information in the news release, the Investigation Department of Kentron and Nork-Marash administrative districts of Yerevan city Investigative Committee initiated criminal proceedings under Article 333 (False crime reporting) of the RA Criminal Code. The criminal proceedings targeted Artur Sakunts, Chairman of HCA Vanadzor, who filed a crime report based on the news release published by the media above. The illegal prosecution against A. Sakunts ended in a decision on his apprehension.

In another case, HCA Vanadzor filed a crime report on the pressures and threats against convict K. S. at Vanadzor penitentiary, based on the report by the Public Observers’ Group Conducting Public Monitoring of Penitentiary Institutions and Bodies of the RA MoJ. Once again, instead of examining the case under Article 309 (Exceeding official powers) of the RA Criminal Code, criminal proceedings were initiated under Article 333 (False crime reporting) of the RA Criminal Code targeting the persons who filed the crime report, namely A. Sakunts and A. Zalyan and O. Zalyan, members of the Public Observers’ Group. As a result, victim K. S., convict at Vanadzor penitentiary, had to withdraw his requirement for the protection and restoration of his rights, no legal consequences arose under the criminal act, the crime remained unsolved, and once again, the alleged offender escaped punishment.
Such unlawful practices of the competent authorities are clearly aimed against the activities of the entities and individuals engaged in human rights protection. Actually, such practices aim to silence the voice of the human rights defenders through pressure, so that they do not raise the issues of crimes and particularly unlawful conduct of officials.
HCA Vanadzor hereby:
• strongly condemns the law enforcement practices of concealing crimes through a fabricated crime;
• reiterates that the most essential factors of a well-established legal state are as follows: independence, proper behavior, impartiality and professionalism of law enforcement agencies;
• draws the attention of the competent authorities to the fact that such authorities are bound by duty to protect the persons who report a crime, and the practices described above may have irreversible and uncontrollable implications and bring to naught all the efforts to enhance trust for the government system and particularly, law enforcement agencies and reduce the atmosphere of selective justice and impunity,
and declares
that the primary task of HCA Vanadzor human rights NGO is human rights protection and this task will be performed in any case and atmosphere.