Human rights plight in Armenia: facts about persecutions and assassinations

When the former Karabakh clan was in power in Armenia, murders, corruption, political persecution and a number of criminogenic situations became almost commonplace in the country. On October 27, 1999, the joint murder of Karen Demirchiyan, the former prime minister of Armenia, and Vazgen Sargsyan, the commander of the Armenian army at that time, deepened the political turmoil in the country. The rift between the people and the government deepens, crimes become widespread, and arbitrariness begins to reign in the country. Thus, Armenia becomes the worst place of human rights and centre of criminal groups.

Over time, this trend begins to reverse its direction along an imaginary course. Nikol Pashinyan, who is young but weak in political sphere, takes over power through the Velvet revolution by creeping into Western millionaires' favour. During Pashinyan's coming to power, various criminal incidents took place, but the new prime minister was able to cover up these cases with certain competence. Pashinyan frustrated the population in terms of human rights. Many in Armenia and the world thought and expected that after Pashinyan the dire situation in human rights will change positively. However, this did not change many stereotypes in Armenia's traditional political system.

It is worth noting that prior to Pashinyan's ascending to power, Armenia was one of the most repressive countries in the world and fascism reigned in the country. Not just ordinary citizens, but also minority groups and cultural heritages of different nations were subjected to oppression and vandalism. Take thousands of Azerbaijanis and Muslim Kurds, for example. They were expelled from Armenia at the end of the 1980s and at the beginning of the 1990s. Besides, every four Russians, the compatriots of the strategic ally of Armenia, out of five were obliged to leave the country in the 1990s. Even the Russian Orthodox Church which was built in the village of Kuropatkino of Khojavand region in 1894 was subjected to vandalism and demolished. Besides, Armenians destroyed the cultural heritages of other nations or turned them into animal stalls.

Armenian Markar Melkonyan's book "My brother's Road" describes Armenia's attitude to a human being as follows: An Azerbaijani is chained and held captive like a dog. They throw food in front of him like a dog. One day, an Armenian holding an Azerbaijani captive beheaded him. However, nightmares don't leave him alone every day. He goes to the Armenian priest and says: is it a sin to cut off a dog's head?

The priest asks: a two-legged dog or a four-legged dog?

Armenian killer (Kechal Sergey) says: two-legged dog

And the priest answers the question, "If it is a two-legged dog, it is not considered a sin."

If this is the attitude of a nation towards a human kind, then it is not worth talking about the situation inside it. Armenians tried to alienate all ethnic peoples throughout history by conducting politics worse than fascists. After expelling other nations and turning multiethnic Armenia into a monoethnic country, the government started to oppress ordinary Armenians as well. Citizens were arrested without any court, tortured, and even killed. Take Poghos Poghosyan, who was beaten to death by the bodyguards of then President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan. The bodyguard was sentenced to a year of probation.

Even the victims were forced to give up and not appeal to relevant organizations for investigation. The country’s Investigative Committee provided details on the incident. The case of David Simonyan, a resident of Yerevan, exemplifies it. On April 1, 2007, David Simonyan was hospitalized with the wound. The police in Yerevan closed the case hastily claiming that his friend Arthur Ghevondyan shot him inadvertently with the gun found in the street. Later, it was uncovered that David Simonyan was shot by Hayk Sargsyan, the nephew of the third president of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan.

The peak of such crimes in Armenia is the slaughtering of eight protestors in the meeting held against the rigged election won by the Karabakh clique in 2008. It should be highlighted that nobody was punished for the mass killing. Later, the second president of Armenia Robert Kocharyan said that the Armenian government deliberately did it and if we [the Armenian government] had not killed them Azerbaijan would have taken advantage of the protests. Frankly speaking, his words prove the prominent saying which claims that dictators need external enemies for suppressing discontent in the society.

The list of crimes relating to the violation of human rights before Pashinyan can be prolonged, but the list is so big that unfortunately, one article is not enough to shed light on all of them. Of course, Pashinyan used these crimes against the Karabakh clique in 2018 when he called the citizens to rush to the streets. Believing Pashinyan would change the then-current situation, the citizens supported him and the Karabakh clique was forced to descend from power. However, Pashinyan swallowed his words, and nothing has changed so far. It should be highlighted that according to the media outlets over 70 people died in 2018-2022.

One of the noisy killings was the murdering one of the protestors in November 2020. Local Armenian media claimed that the corpse found in Yerevan belonged to the man who had sat in the armchair of the speaker of the Armenian Parliament.

Sashik Sultanyan, a citizen of Armenia of Yezidi origin was punished over his interview with an international media outlet. The guilt of the Sashik was to voice the discriminations that Yezidis encountered in their daily lives. Self-styled democratic country Armenia turned a blind eye to the pleas of international organizations to drop a criminal case against Sashik Sultanyan.

According to international human rights organizations, more than 200 criminal cases have been initiated on charges of grave insults against officials since 2021.

It is worth noting that the violation of human rights in Armenia also impedes the integration process initiated by Azerbaijan. Recall that Armenian anti-war activists were harshly punished and pro-war propaganda was supported by the Pashinyan government during the 44-day in 2020. Besides, according to Armenian journalist Roman Bagdasarian a grocer in the territories controlled by separatists in Karabakh was punished for selling products made in Azerbaijan. Silencing pro-peace activists and punishing people who want to deal with Azerbaijan is the biggest obstacle before the peace process.

In the end, we can conclude that following this politics Armenian government paves the road for devastation. It is no secret that over 30 percent of Armenians have left Armenia over the past 30 years. Day by day the population of Armenia goes to decline. If the process continues in this way, after 60 years no Armenian will be left in the country .