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On February 16, 2016, Congress Hotel hosted in its Ball Room a discussion held by Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Vanadzor on Human Rights Protection Issues in Police-Citizen Relations.

The discussion was attended by representatives of competent governmental agencies, NGOs, foundations and international organizations.

The event started with the opening remarks by A. Sakunts, Chairman of HCA Vanadzor.

Then Anush Hambaryan, HCA Vanadzor Project Assistant, presented the situation of human rights violations by the police by the findings of mass media monitoring in 2015.

In the 2nd part of the event, expert sociologist Ruben Sargsyan presented the Report on Indexes Characterizing Activities of the Republic of Armenia Law Enforcement Agencies summing up the findings of the public opinion survey carried out in August 2015.

Under the survey, the RA law enforcement arbitrariness index and RA Police trust index revealed citizens’ attitude towards the law enforcement activities.

In the 3rd part of the event, the participants watched a video report in form of a documentary entitled ,,Periodic Disease,, prepared by journalist Teհmine Yenokyan. The instances of political persecutions, torture and attacks on citizens covered in the documentary occurred in 2014-2015. It is noteworthy that all the cases described were either discontinued or suspended; and in some cases, even no criminal proceedings were initiated.

The screening was followed by a discussion when the participants voiced their observations on the topic in question.

In his speech on unsolved crimes, Avetik Ishkhanyan, Chairman of Helsinki Committee of Armenia, mentioned that such practices might have 2 reasons, namely political expediency and non-professional activities, considering the latter slightly unlikely.

In his speech, Tigran Naghdalyan, RA National Assembly Standing Committee on Defense, National Security and Internal Affairs expert, highlighted the significance of such meetings and discussions. He mentioned that the real way to resolution of the issue passed through systemic changes and adequate personnel policies, with а particular emphasis on improving the educational level of the defense and law enforcement officers. In the end of his speech, the expert expressed a hope that as a result of the reforms, police will turn into a service-providing agency from law-enforcement one.

A. Sakunts, Chairman of HCA Vanadzor, emphasized that the police kept statistics only of crimes committed by citizens and none of the crimes committed by law enforcement agencies against citizens; by doing so, the state essentially failed to fulfill its human rights commitments.

Civic activists and NGO representatives present at the event also expressed their observations on the topic.