The data that the Prosecutor of Lori Province has do not correspond to the real statistics
10:53, January 31, 2018 | News, Own news | Prohibition of Discrimination
On January 12, 2018 Prosecutor of Lori Province A. Martirosyan submitted a written request to Vanadzor’s Mayor M. Aslanyan on the issue of establishing oversight over the residents of the dormitory on 90 Yerevan Highway in Vanadzor who have “unlawful conduct.”
In his written request the Prosecutor mentioned a recent case that occurred in the dormitory, and summarizing the information, indicated that “frequent cases of offenses and crimes are recorded in the dormitory.”
The written request reads, “Studies show that persons having unlawful views have settled in the dormitory, and there is a lack of adequate oversight over their conduct.”
With the inquiry of January 15, 2018 addressed at the Prosecutor of Lori Province, Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Vanadzor Office tried to find out what the Prosecutor of Lori Province meant by the concept “unlawful”, how it was defined, and on what factual gounds the Prosecutor had submitted the written request.
At the same time, with inquiries for information HCA Vanadzor applied to the RA Investigative Committee and Vanadzor’s Bazum Division of the Lori Regional Department of the RA Police, requesting information on the unlawful actions that were conducted in the aforementioned dormitory, the criminal cases initiated on the grounds of those actions and the number of alerts in 2016-2017.
Despite the assessment with regard to the cases of offenses and crimes presented in the written request of the Prosecutor of Lori Province, the information provided by the RA Investigative Committee and the Police shows a different picture; in 2016 and 2017 1 criminal case was initiated for each incident.
As regards the alerts received by the Police, only 1 person from the 39 alerts from 2016 and 1 person from the 23 alerts from 2017 were brought to administrative responsibility.
In response to the inquiry of HCA Vanadzor, Prosecutor of Lori Province A. Martirosyan refused to comment on the contents of the term “unlawful” and contented himself with referring to Article 200 of the RA Criminal Procedure Code, where, however, the aforementioned term is not mentioned.
Vanadzor’s Mayor M. Aslanyan, in response to the inquiry of HCA Vanadzor, assured that the oversight in the dormitory is conducted with the help of the commandant as well as the representative of the community council. M. Aslanyan added that “it is planned to install a sensor illumination system and cameras, if possible.”
Incidentally, 31 families and 6 single citizens (72 people in total) reside in the dormitory.
Thus, obviously this has to do with a discriminatory attitude towards people based on their place of living, facts of the formation of stigma, which is a violation of Article 29 of the RA Constitution (Prohibition of Discrimination) and Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.