IHF FOCUS: elections and referenda; freedom of expression and the media;
peaceful assembly; fair trial and detainees’ rights; torture, ill-treatment and police misconduct; prisons and detention
facilities; religious freedom;
conscientious objection; death penalty; homosexuals’ rights; human rights
defenders.
In 2003
Between
20 and 24 August, Renе Andrе (
In
2003 there was no progress over the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict. Moreover, more than ten people died in clashes during July and
August. Continuance of the conflict allowed the Armenian authorities, in
violation of national legislation, to conscript Armenian citizens for military
service in Nagorno Karabakh and also in the occupied territories.
On
9 April, Robert Kocharyan was elected president for a second term in elections
that fell seriously short of international standards.
The
killing on
Xenophobic and anti-Semitic acts by members of the
Armenian Revolutionary Federation Dashnaktsutyun
(ARF, a National Socialist oriented party) continued. On 22 April, members of its students union staged
an anti-Turkish demonstration at the 2nd international cinema
festival where a Turkish film was scheduled to be screened. Two days later, the
same group conducted a torchlight procession dedicated to the 88th
anniversary of the genocide of the Armenians in the Osman Empire in 1915.
Before the beginning of the procession a Turkish flag, with the six-point David
star drawn on it, was publicly burned.
On
24 February, after the first round of the presidential elections, the Armenian
Helsinki Association appealed to the OSCE, the Council of Europe, the US
Congress and State Department stating: “The Helsinki Association has repeatedly
accused Armenian authorities of pursuing a policy that runs counter to the
internationally accepted norms regarding human rights and fundamental freedoms,
warning the world community that the application of double standards towards
Armenia could lead to unpredictable consequences.” It called upon the
international community to urge Armenian authorities to fulfill their
obligations undertaken upon accession to the Council of Europe, as well as
those in international instruments to which
On
19 February and 5 March, presidential elections were held in
Both
elections were observed by local[5]
and international observers, including
the International Observation Mission (IOM) composed of the OSCE/ODIHR,
the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) and the European Union. The
PACE noted: “…the Assembly cannot but express its profound disappointment at
the conduct of the elections - the presidential elections in February and March
2003 and the parliamentary elections in May 2003— which gave rise to serious
irregularities and massive fraud and led the international observers to
conclude that the electoral process as a whole had not complied with
international standards.”[6] Both
OSCE/ODIHR and PACE criticized the tabulation process of the presidential vote
as fully incompatible with international standards.
During the election campaigns leading up to
both the presidential and parliamentary elections, all state and public
resources were mobilized in favor of the incumbent president and pro-governmental
parties. State and local officials worked virtually as election campaigners
during their working hours and used all infrastructures at their disposal
(buildings, vehicles, communication techniques, etc.) to promote the incumbent
president and the parties in power, and public sector employees throughout the
republic were sent to meetings in support of them.
The
2003 elections were preceded by the closure of two independent TV stations and
the assassination of the chairman of the Board of Directors of Armenian public
radio and television, incidents that led to self-censorship of journalists. As
a result, the electronic media failed to cover the campaigning in an objective
and unbiased manner. While public TV granted to all candidates equal promotional
time for free, its news bulletins and other more analytical programs clearly
served as propaganda in favor of incumbent president and pro-governmental
parties. Paid pre-election advertising on private electronic media cost as much
as €98 per minute.[7]
During
the presidential vote international and local observers recorded the following
irregularities: ballot stuffing,[8]
multiple voting, bribing voters at polling-station and casting a ballot for
persons who were ineligible to vote. They observed buses bearing state
registration plates in which people were transported from one polling-station
to another in order to cast votes several times for the incumbent president.
They were reportedly paid 3,000-5,000 Armenian drums (€ 4-7) for each vote
cast. In addition, military personnel filled in their ballot papers outside
booths or in them but accompanied by officers. Moreover, even the final
statistics made public by the Central Electoral Commission on 31 May revealed
inconsistencies: for example, according to them the number of voters who signed
the registers in the polling stations was 1,233,757, but the number of cast
ballots was 1,234,925.
Some
violent incidents occurred during the election campaigns and on the day of
polling. For example, on 4 February, a
violent mob attacked campaign officers of the presidential candidate Aram Karapetyan
in Artashat (Ararat region) and
stabbed one of them while
police remained inactive. In the village of Shaumyan in the 24th constituency
(Ararat region), a local criminal shot at people gathered at the polling station, killing one and wounding
three. A ballot box was stolen, allegedly at the order of the village chief, at
the polling station of the 29th constituency (Armavir region) where an
international election observer was also beaten. In
One
opposition candidate, Raffi Hovhannisyan, was rejected registration as a
presidential candidate on the basis of article 50 of the Constitution because
he was not an Armenian citizen even though he had been residing in
From the end of the first round of the presidential elections up until
the swearing in of the president, about 400 people, who had participated in
opposition meetings and demonstrations, were given administrative punishments
both in the form of administrative detention for up to two weeks or a fine of
up to 3,000 drums (€4). The defendants did not have access to legal counsel,
and the trials were usually held at night and behind closed doors. Some of the
accused were not even brought to a court building.
After the first round of the presidential elections, the opposition
submitted 106 complaints and demanded a re-count of the votes at 70 polling
stations. However, the Central Election Commission regarded only 15 complaints
as well-founded. On 24 March the
A
critical press release issued by the IOM on 26 May on the parliamentary
elections stated that the elections “marked improvement over the recent
presidential voting, but failed to meet international standards in several key
areas.”[10]
One
basic shortcoming of the election law was the formation of the electoral
commissions: each political party represented in the National Assembly was
allowed to appoint a representative, and three were appointed by the president.
The PACE-OSCE/ODIHR concluding report noted that this formula led to
politically imbalanced commissions in which most opposition candidates had
little confidence.[11]
The
parliamentary elections were marred by a serious lack of transparency and a
considerable amount of fraud and irregularities. The PACE noted that
“significant problems were observed during the counting process in over 30 % of
polling stations. These included the falsification of protocols, ballot
stuffing, stealing of ballots and the removal of uncounted ballot papers. At
many polling stations counting procedures were poorly followed, criteria for
invalidation of ballots were inconsistently applied and proxies and observers
were denied a clear view of the process.”[12]
At
some polling stations half of the names on the voter-lists were names of
persons who were not entitled to vote, accompanied with a date of birth of 1
January. This date of birth constituted a code for members of the electoral
commissions who would then allow people to register as these persons and to
cast a ballot. In contrast, tens of thousands of citizens who should have been
entitled to vote were not registered on voter-lists.[13]
Electoral
commissions hindered the registration of many opposition candidates while there
were no such problems during the registration of the pro-government candidates
for the parliamentary elections.
Media
activities were governed by the law “On Press and Other Mass Media” (of 1991 as
amended in 2001) and “On Radio and Television Broadcasting.” On 23 October a
new law “On Freedom of Information” was adopted and on 12 December, in line
with
However,
in January 2004, the Council of Europe and the NGO “Article 19” concluded that
the law “On Mass Media” had a number of shortcomings in light of international
law and standards. According to them, the definition of “mass media” was
excessively broad, the system for awarding the right to refutation and the
right of reply was confusing, and the accreditation regime was discretionary
and potentially chaotic. The definition of “mass media,” “mass media resource”
and “journalist” as well as “persons
conducting mass media activity” were highly problematic, and problems
were exacerbated by the inter-relatedness of these concepts. The law did not
include the definition of the internet as a mass media resource, thereby
creating much confusion. Additionally, the vagueness of the provision which
required journalists to “check in all possible ways the accuracy of
information” and the provision to reveal the source of information were
inconsistent with international standards and represented a breach of the right
to freedom of expression.[14]
However,
on a more positive note, the new law “On Mass Media” no longer required
registration of all media outlets.
In
its 2004 report, the Council of Europe expressed serious doubts about the pluralism
of the electronic media in
The
NTCR had the power to deprive television and radio stations of their license
under article 55 of the media law, among other reasons, if a media outlet
violated license regulation and ignored three warnings given within a year; if
its technology did not meet the given standards; if it constituted a threat to
human health; if it hampered the work of other television or radio stations; if
the standards of its programs did not correspond to the set standards and the
media outlet ignored warnings; or if the outlet failed to commence operation
within six months after the issuance of the license.
Censorship
was prohibited by the Constitution and the Media Law. However, the term “abuse
of speech” in article 6 of the law suggested some form of censorship. In
practice, self-censorship by journalists and editors existed both in
oppositional and pro-governmental or state-run media. For example, the
pro-governmental media failed to report on human rights violations.
Despite
the fact that defamation or libel in Criminal Codes contradicts a number of
international human rights standards, this remained the case in
·
On 21 March and 25 April, the appellate and
cassation courts of
·
On 30 April the editorial
office of the opposition newspaper Chorord Ishkhanutyun (The Fourth
Power) was informed by the Court of First Instance of Center and Norq-Marash
communities in
Journalists faced harassment and
were attacked.
·
On 19 March, police
severely beat Merujan Minasyan, a free-lance correspondent for the Arminfo
news agency. He had tried to take photos of police using violence during a
public meeting. After that, Minasyan was forced into a civilian car and taken
to the police station of Arabkir in
·
On 29 April, Mher
Khalechyan, a human rights correspondent, was brutally beaten and verbally
insulted in the editorial office of the opposition newspaper Chorrord
Ishkhanutyn. One of the assailants was Gegham Petrosyan who belongs to the
closest circles of the National Security Chief of
·
During the night of 26 to
27 September, Gayane Mukoyan, editor-in-chief of the
Peaceful Assembly
The
right to peaceful assembly was guaranteed by the Constitution, but no laws had
been adopted by the end of 2003 to implement this right. Therefore, in practice
numerous blanket regulations, which provided for restrictions on this right,
were applied, including provisions of the Code of Administrative Offences, the
Criminal Code, the law “On Local Governance,” and the presidential decree “On
State Governance in the City of
Under Armenian law, organizers of public meetings, processions or a
demonstration were merely obliged to notify municipal authorities about the
time and place of a public event. In 2003, authorities routinely prohibited
such events under various pretexts.
Following
the first round of the presidential elections, the opposition began holding
permanent meetings and processions in
·
On 9 April, the day President Kocharyan was sworn in,
more than 50 people were injured
during a clash between demonstrators and law enforcement agencies in the center
of
Arbitrary
detention was common police practice. The maximum legal length of detention
without charges was 72 hours, but investigation agencies frequently arrested
crime suspects ostensibly for “minor hooliganism” under the Code for
Administrative Offences in order to take time to gather evidence against them
for other crimes they had allegedly committed.
In
a similar vein, participants in peaceful demonstrations during the unrest
following the election were given various administrative punishments and denied
due process. Many were taken to courts where they were handed down fines in an
arbitrary manner without adequate proceedings. In some cases people were
sentenced in absentia without being brought
before a court at all.
The police also failed to inform detainees and witnesses of their
rights despite the fact that the Criminal Procedure Code obliged them to do so.
At best, police simply gave witnesses or suspects a paper to sign that they had
been informed of their rights without giving them time to read carefully what
rights they had.
In addition, by law, those summoned to a police station should be
informed in writing about their status (suspects or witnesses). However, in
practice police officers would often show up and simply take a person to the
police station or demand his presence by phone. In addition, many were summoned
to police stations as witnesses—therefore not entitled to legal counsel— and
later their status was changed to that of suspect. This arbitrary procedure
allowed the police to hold them beyond the prescribed 72 hours. Moreover, while
by law the police were only allowed to interrogate witnesses during working
hours, many of them were held overnight and interrogated.
The
right of detainees to have access to legal counsel, family members and a doctor
was guaranteed by law but it was not respected: on many occasions interrogators
convinced detainees that the best counsel was the interrogator. If the detainee
insisted on having access to legal counsel, he was usually appointed a defense
lawyer who cooperated closely with the police.
According
to the Criminal Procedure Code, the
maximum term of pre-trial detention was two months, which, however, could be
prolonged by two months, but not longer than a total of one year. There was a right to state-appointed and
-paid lawyers, but the defendants usually rejected their services due to the
poor performance: in some cases, such defense lawyers had even pressurized
their clients into pleading guilty on the basis of an arrangement with the
prosecution or judge and for money.
Despite
the principle of parity enshrined in the Criminal Procedure Code, the rights of
the defense were frequently violated. For example, defense lawyers needed a
permit from the investigation agency to meet with his/her client in detention.
The government-controlled media often
violated the principle of the presumption of innocence in high-profile
political cases. For example, in the above-mention case of Murad Bodjolyan,[16]
the media labeled the defendant an offender before the court had handed down a
sentence.
Law enforcement officers frequently used undue
physical and psychological pressure to extract information or confessions from
both suspects and witnesses. There were cases of harassment of relatives of
suspects, and confessions or information extracted under duress were sometimes
used as evidence.
·
On 12 December, police
officers took Natasha Voskanyan, an employee at a hotel in which a dead body
had been found, to a police station as a witness. She was told that unless she
gave a statement indicating that she had seen the body, her brother and sister
would be brought to the police station and that her child might “have an
accident.” Interrogators held her hands down on a table and hit her fingers,
burned her arms and slapped her around the face causing her to lose
consciousness twice. They also assaulted her verbally and threatened to rape
her. She was not given anything to eat for 71 hours. While first questioned as
a witness, her status was soon changed into that of suspect. During court
proceedings Voskanyan informed the judge that she had “confessed” under duress,
but her statement was ignored.
·
In the early morning of 25
December, more than 20 police officers forced their way into the apartment of
Hayk Egoyan, a murder suspect. As he was not there, his brother Karen was taken
to a police station. During the following two days he was put under pressure to
confess that either he or his brother had committed the crime.
Torture, Ill-Treatment
and Police Misconduct
The Criminal Code prohibited the use of torture and envisaged
accountability for it: according to it, all alleged cases had to be immediately
investigated. However, there was no independent and efficient mechanism to
investigate alleged cases of torture by law enforcement agencies.
Investigations usually ended up in cases being dismissed for lack of evidence
and in many cases the accused perpetrators not only went unpunished but also continued to be in
charge of the same case.
·
On 4 December, police officers in the town of
·
On 28 January, two unidentified persons in
plain clothes came to 17 year-old Vardan Paremuzyan’s work place in the town of
The Armenian Helsinki Association was aware of at least two cases of
death during pre-trial detention. Both of them were officially interpreted as
suicide.
·
In September, police officers in the town of
·
During the night of 26 to27 December, 26-year-old Albert Barseghyan
allegedly committed suicide while kept in preliminary detention in Tashir
(Lori region). According to the police,
Barseghyan, who was detained on suspicion of rape, hanged himself by using a
rope and a light window hook. However, there were strong suspicions that he was
a victim of torture at the hands of the police.
The European Committee against Torture
visited
Prisons and Detention Facilities
During
the year, the Armenian Helsinki Association carried out an unprecedented
program of monitoring Armenian prison and detention facilities, visiting 11
criminal-executive institutions (CEI).
In
2003, only 12 out of 14 CEIs were in operation: the facilities in Megri and
Razdan were closed. The operating facilities were divided into five pre-trial
detention centers and seven prisons for convicted prisoners. The overall
population numbered 6,490 inmates. After the adoption of the new Criminal Code,
which provided for more lenient sentences, 3,888 inmates appealed for reduced
sentences. As a result, 954 were released, 1,132 had their terms reduced and
1,802 complaints were dismissed.
In pre-trial detention centers the inmates were held in cells the
capacity of which ranged from two to twelve persons. The cells were smaller
than the 4 m˛ per inmate that the regulations prescribed, but building work was
under way in order to meet the standards. As for colonies, the convicts were
accommodated in barracks, which commonly housed 30 persons.
By
law, detainees should have undergone mandatory medical check-ups upon their
arrival (including blood tests and screening for TB and HIV) and the results
should have been recorded in personal health cards. In practice this was not
always done. TB and other infectious diseases were relatively widespread, and
the CEI hospital treated six HIV infected prisoners. At the Nubarashen CEI,
Helsinki Association representatives met a prisoner suffering from AIDS who said
that he did not receive proper treatment.
All
known mentally ill prisoners—124 diagnosed cases—were mainly held in the mental
department of the CEI hospital in
Prison
food generally fell seriously short of the requirements laid down in the
governmental decree of
The hygienic conditions in CEIs left much to be desired. Nearly all
cells were in miserable conditions, and officials blamed this on the lack of
proper funding. Most facilities were in need of major reconstruction, while the
whole building of Vanadzor CEI was entirely unsuitable for holding prisoners.
In 2003, major building work started but only to join the Vardashen and Erevan
CEIs, facilities designed for former law enforcement officials. Generally,
inmates were permitted to take a shower once every ten days. In violation of
the governmental decree, items for personal hygiene and bed linen were not
handed out—prisoners were expected to receive them from relatives.
In
pre-trial detention centers there were no real toilets but only buckets kept in
cells. In facilities for convicted prisoners, bucket lavatories were situated
in separate barracks which were in deplorable hygienic conditions, lacking any
ventilation system.
No
facilities visited by the Armenian Helsinki Association were adaptable to local
weather conditions. Floors in cells were either made of concrete or asphalt, no
central heating was provided, and in winter the windows were only covered with
polyethylene. Cells were heated with hot plates received from relatives, and in
prison barracks the inmates said the plates would be removed after the monitors’
departure. In summer the cells were ventilated simply by opening both the
window on the wall and the one on the door, although this was only possible if
officials were bribed into doing so.
The use of
telephones was in principle possible for all inmates but
phone-cards could only be obtained from relatives or friends. Correspondence
was restricted for pre-trial detainees and was only allowed upon permission
given by the investigation agencies. While the law “On Conditions of
Maintenance of Arrested and Detained Persons” did not permit restrictions on
phone calls, in practice investigators often prohibited them. Visits
were allowed as provided by the regime of the respective CEI, usually one short
visit (one hour) a month for pre-trial detainees and one short and one long
visit (three days) a month for convicted prisoners. However, there were no long-term visit rooms in some detention
places.
Every CEI had a library, but the number of books was small and most of
them were old. Periodicals could be received only from relatives and friends.
All cells and barracks were equipped with a radio, and nearly all cells had a
TV set that belonged to the inmates. All CEIs had premises for recreational
activities for convicted prisoners.
According to the Nubarasen CEI
administration, pre-trial detainees were allowed one-hour outdoor exercises per
day, however, inmates claimed that it was provided only once every 15 days.
Convicted prisoners were generally allowed to move about in the facilities. A
punishment cell situated in a separate facility was used as a disciplinary
measure for a term of 15 days to three months.
Following
its prison monitoring, the Armenian Helsinki Association concluded that the
conditions for both pre-trial detainees and convicted prisoners constituted
inhuman and degrading treatment. Moreover, verbal abuse was widespread practice
and beatings of inmates also occurred—these were usually ordered by the
administration and were carried out by fellow inmates.
Conditions in the Abovyan facility for juvenile delinquents were in
general slightly better. The institution provided normal school education and
vocational training, but the monitoring team noted that many classrooms lacked
chairs and had cobwebs on their ceilings indicating that they had not been used
for a long time. The Abovyan CEI was the only one that had a sports hall and a
computer room.
The
Norwegian Helsinki Committee visited four pre-trial detention facilities and
underscored in its report a need for a fundamental reform of the physical
conditions and extensive upgrading of many facilities in order to bring them up
to acceptable standards. It also recommended additional professional training
for prison administrators and other staff.
An
additional problem in prison was the fact that prompt release of prisoners who
had served their term could normally be guaranteed only upon bribing prison
administrators. By the same token, bribing helped put names on the list of
those to be amnestied, and those released on parole had to bribe police
officers to sign certifications that they had reported to the police on a
regular basis.
Despite
multiple statements made by the Ministry of Justice considering an elaboration
of a new program on social and psychological rehabilitation of prisoners, no such
training was offered in 2003.
Freedom of Religion
The Law “On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations” required
registration of all religious associations or confessions in order for them to
operate legally. Religious associations were registered by the State Register
upon expert opinion issued by the governmental State Body on Religious Affairs.
To be registered, a religious association needed to have no less than 200
adherents, to be based on a “historic canonical teaching,” and its worship had
to be among one of the “world religious-ecclesiastical systems” (article 5).
The State Body on Religious Affairs only supported applications from religious
associations whose teachings did not contradict that of the
Jehovah’s
Witnesses were particularly targeted and harassed. The State Body for Religious
Affairs had for years refused to grant registration to Jehovah's Witnesses
despite the fact that they had submitted to it all required documentation: on
·
On 10 September a local cleric stopped Stella
Alaverdyan and Mikhail Djaladyan, both Jehovah’s Witnesses, who were in Aparan
(Aragatsontn region) to spread information about their religion. At first he
threatened to kill them and then encouraged young men to attack them with
stones. Alaverdyan and Djaladyan sought refuge at a police station where the
chief of police received them with obscene words and said they should be
grateful to be still alive. Another cleric came to the police station, attacked
Djaladyan and beat him and said that he was ready to kill all Jehovah's
Witnesses. The police did not interfere. The chief of police warned them
against filing a complaint saying it would be turned down anyway.
·
On 10 April the court of first instance of Lori town
examined a claim brought by Zemfira Voskanyan, former head of the financial
sector of the police department of the town of Stepanavan (Lori province),
against the regional police department that had dismissed her in February on
the basis of Interior Ministry Order No. 551/a of 13 December 2002 because she
was a Jehovah's Witness. The order prohibited police officers to become members
of “harmful religious sects.” However, this order was officially revoked on
·
On 21 September, a bus of Jehovah’s Winesses from
Nagorno-Karabakh, who had participated in a regional congress in the town of
Conscientious Objection
According
to Council of Europe requirements,
Eventually,
the new law “On Alternative Service” was adopted on
Death Penalty
The
Criminal Code, which came into force on 1 August, no longer provided for the
death penalty. Even before that, no executions took place due to a moratorium
on the death penalty that came into force in 1991.
On 29 September, the National Assembly
ratified Protocol Six to the European Convention on Human Rights and
Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR)—which requires member states to restrict the
application of the death penalty to times of war or emergency—but it neither
ratified nor signed Protocol 13 to the convention—which requires parties to
abolish the death penalty completely.
On
2 August, President Kocharyan signed an edict that commuted the death penalties
of 42 men into life imprisonment. The men demanded to have their cases
re-tried, as provided by the new Criminal Code. In August and September, some
30 of them went on hunger strike.
As
of the end of 2003, a total of 50 men were still on death row. Most of them
were being held in the pre-trial detention center of Nobarashen.
Homosexuals’ Rights
With
the entry into force on 1 August of the new Criminal Code, any discrimination
on grounds of sexual orientation was prohibited. This also put an end to the
possibility of punishing homosexual relations as had been done on the basis of
former article 116. Despite the legal changes, public attitudes towards
homosexuals remained clearly negative. Even human rights activists were
generally reluctant to address the issue.
Gays
were arbitrarily arrested both prior and after the entry into force of the new
Criminal Code. A number of cases were reported in which they were taken to the
police station and pressed to pay a ransom (sometimes up to the equivalent of €1,226). In other cases police officers required money in order not to inform the
detainees’ employers about their sexual orientation. In addition, gays faced
harassment by the population with police remaining inactive in the face of such
incidents.
·
In
November, Petros Temiryan was required to pay €1,226 to
police officers in
·
In
December, Arsen Tovmasyan and his friend were leaving the Monte-Kristo disco
club in the center of
·
In
December, the corpse of Avetik Harutyunyan, a 42-year-old resident of the town
of
Those homosexual men
called up to military service, who openly declared their sexual orientation
during medical check-ups, were sent to a mental hospital for observation on
grounds of “split personality” or “sexual perversion.” After that, the military
medical commission usually granted them deferment for three years—after which
they had to go through the same procedure again up to the age of 27, which was
the end of conscription eligibility age.
The following cases of harassment were recorded in 2003:
·
During
the night of 15 March, unknown persons threw a firebomb into the office of the
Helsinki Citizens Assembly (HCA) in Vanadzor (Lori region), starting a fire in
the premises. The HCA had scheduled a public event for the following day under
the slogan “We will protect our suffrage.” It informed the city administration
of the event but it was banned it under municipal Decree No. 707 of 2002 which
allowed the authorities to prohibit such events—even though the decree had
already been annulled by a court in 2002. On 15 March, some 1,000 people
gathered for the meeting, but the police arrived at the scene and tried to
disperse the crowd. Some time later Artur Sakunts, the HCA chairman, announced
that the event should be called off. Police officers summoned Sakunts to the
police station where he was told that the fist instance court of Vanadzor had
sentenced him to ten days’ administrative detention under article 182 of the
Code for Administrative Offences for disturbing social order. While in custody,
Sakunts was pressured to sign a document stating that the fire had resulted
from a technical failure.
·
In August, the Armenian
Helsinki Association, which conducted the monitoring of the prison system upon
the permission of the Ministry of Justice, was denied access to the
investigation isolator under the National Security. According to set terms, the
association notified the head of the facility in advance about its intention to
visit the place. The following day, however, the head of the facility phoned
the association’s chairman, Mikael Danielyan, and told him that the visit was
out of the question while no explanation was given. On 7 September, the
Norwegian Helsinki Committee, which visited Armenian prisons within the same prison
monitoring project, was denied entry to sector 6 of the Noubarashen pre-trial
detention center after it had been able to visit other parts of the facility.
The Armenian Helsinki Association assumed that denying access to the the
facilities could be attributed to the fact that high-profile prisoners were
held there, namely those involved in the 27 October 1999 terrorist attack on
parliament and the assassination of Tigran Nagdalyan.
·
On 28 September, criminal
charges were brought against Hovik Arsenyan, lawyer of the Armenian Helsinki
Association. He was accused of violating articles 325 and 34-349 of the
Criminal Code for forgery and “attempted pressure on an accused to obtain
needed evidence,” respectively. The criminal case at issue had been closed due
to lack of corpus delicti. Arsenyan
was banned from engaging in lawyer’s activities on the basis of the directive
of
[1] Based on the Annual Report 2003 of the Armenian
[2] In addition, Armenia ratified the Second
Additional Protocol to the European Convention on Extradition; the European
Outline Convention on Transfrontier Co-operation between Territorial
Communities or Authorities and an the Additional Protocol to it; the
Convention on
Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceeds from Crime;
and Protocol No.
2 to the European Outline Convention on Transfrontier Co-operation between
Territorial Communities or Authorities concerning interterritorial co-operation.
[3] PACE, Document No. 10027, Honouring of obligations and commitments by
[4] Preliminary statement of the
international observation mission of the National Democracy Institute (NDI) of
the
[5] Thirty-one local NGOs applied
for the right to observe the elections and referenda, 29 of them were granted
permission.
[6] PACE,op.cit.
[7] See also the section on
Freedom of the Media.
[8] The Armenian Helsinki Association, which
observed the presidential elections, recorded about 500,000 illegally cast
ballots in favor of the incumbent president.
[9] Critics of this decision pointed out that Robert Kocharyan could not possibly have been a citizen for ten years because he had not resided on Armenian territory during the Soviet era and so could not have been granted so-called “mechanical citizenship,” nor had he submitted a citizenship application for signature by the president. Also, critics noted that he had lived for several years in Nagorno-Karabakh, a region not internationally recognized as Armenian territory.
[10] IOM, “Parliamentary
Elections, Republic of
[11] OSCE/ODIHR, “Final Report on Presidential
Elections in
[12] PACE, op.cit.
[13] Information from the
Armenian
[14] Carlos Landim and Thomas Gibbons, “Comments on
the draft law of the
[15] The previous Criminal Code provided for up to
six years imprisonment for libel under article 131 and up to one year for
insult under article 132.
[16] See the section on
Freedom of the Media.
[17] Decree No. 413-N
[18] Since 1997, the Armenian
Helsinki Association has been promoting a law that would provide for
alternative civilian service on grounds other than religious but its
recommendations have been ignored.
[19] No. 12/035-03(5)