Human rights in Armenia: reports of Helsinki Committee of Armenia confirm crimes remaining obscure

By Azernews

In recent years, there have been many official and unofficial reports on the human rights problem in Armenia. More widespread of them are suicide, political persecution, and the intolerable conditions of forced military service. In general, more deaths have been observed in Armenia during the last 2 years, a large percentage of which are related to chaotic incidents in military service, and most importantly, the humiliating defeat in the Second Karabakh War. It should be noted that most of the obtained facts refer to noncombat conditions.

Thus, human rights nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) continued to express concerns over noncombat deaths in the army and the failure of law enforcement bodies to conduct credible investigations into those deaths. According to civil society organizations and victims’ families, the practice of qualifying many noncombat deaths as suicides at the onset of investigations made it less likely that abuses would be uncovered and investigated. And as to human rights lawyers, the biggest obstacle to investigation of military deaths was the destruction or nonpreservation of key evidence, both by the military command (in cases of internal investigations) and by the specific investigation body working on a case.

Besides, the human rights NGOs say that the government’s lack of transparency in reporting on military deaths, whether classified as combat or noncombat, led to public distrust of official information in this sphere.

As regards the human rights violations and facts of death in military service, on August 19, the Ministry of Defense reported that three conscripts had been found dead with gunshot wounds at a military post in the West Zangazur (southeastern Syunik) region.

Later that day the ministry announced the arrest of a soldier on suspicion of murder. On August 23, the Investigative Committee reported the arrest of the post commander, who was suspected of "inciting the unlawful intentional killing of servicemen and committing violent sexual acts against a serviceman." According to civil society, the murders were indicative of years of official failure to act on multiple watchdog reports of discipline problems, impunity, and corruption inside the army.

Another fact is related to Armenian Aghhajanyan, who was killed while in prison. It is noted that there was no progress in the investigation into the 2018 death of Aghajanyan, who was found hanged in the Nubarashen National Center for supposedly ‘mental health’ where he had been transferred from Nubarashen Penitentiary for a psychological assessment. His family believed Aghajanyan was killed to prevent his identification of penitentiary guards who beat and tortured him prior to his transfer to the hospital. The investigation into Aghajanyan’s alleged suicide was suspended for the third time on March 3. One of the attackers in Aghajanyan’s torture case, Major Armen Hovhannisyan, was initially charged with torture and falsification of documents, but the trial court requalified his actions as exceeding official authority and released him on the basis of a 2018 amnesty.

Human rights NGOs elucidating the cases of military deaths note that the trauma of the 2020 fighting was a leading factor in the suicides. The Prosecutor General’s Office reported a high rate of suicide among the family members of servicemembers and persons who participated in the conflict as volunteers.

Political persecutions

The fact is that human rights violations in Armenia are not limited only to the military structures of the country that were destroyed after the Patriotic War. Such cases are also widespread in political circles. For example, if we look at the recent confessions of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, it can be easily confirmed that political persecutions and harassments are widespread in Armenia. Even Pashinyan repeatedly told the public that there were assassination attempts against him and his family members.

To discover such facts, it is possible to review not only recent history, but also the events of the 2000s. Unfortunately, authorities take no steps to set up a fact-finding commission to examine noncombat deaths, among other human rights abuses. Many criminal cases and human rights problems are still kept secret and covered up.

In general, the criminal cases that occur in the authorities in Armenia are related to political persecutions and cases of contract killings. Vazgen Sargsyan, Armenian military commander, Karen Demirchyan, former Armenian Prime Minister, Yuri Bakhshyan, Deputy National Assembly Speaker are state representatives who were victims of assassination in the history of Armenia. For example, when Nikol Pashinyan admitted that he recognized the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan at the 5th trilateral meeting in Brussels in May, he also expressed a number of opinions about his own security. It is no coincidence that Pashinyan stated that he did not want to experience the fate of his former colleague Karen Demirchyan and said that his son was allegedly attacked. Regardless of how objective Pashinyan's confessions are, the mentioned facts easily confirm that political persecution in Armenia is in a pathological state.

Political arrests and persecutions are also traditional in Armenia. For example, Pashinyan cannot be considered the only target here. Since the interests and influence mechanisms are different, it can sometimes be used against the government, and sometimes by the government against the opposing forces. Of course, we are talking about the former president of Armenia, Robert Kocharyan, against whom a criminal case was opened.

According to the reports, on March 26, the Constitutional Court ruled that a criminal code article under which former president Robert Kocharyan and other high-ranking officials were prosecuted for their involvement in sending the military to break up protests after the 2008 presidential election, resulting in the deaths of eight civilians and two police officers, has been void. However, Kocharyan and his former chief of staff, Armen Gevorgyan, were continued to stand trial on bribery charges. The judge acquitted two other defendants in this case, retired Ministry of Defense generals Yuri Khachaturov and Seyran Ohanian, who were charged with overthrowing the constitutional order in connection with the postelection unrest. The court denied the prosecutor’s appeal to requalify the case under a different article of the criminal code. Many in the legal community questioned the original decision to indict the officials under the specific article chosen. Although the trial ran for three years before the Constitutional Court ruling, the trial court never discussed the merits of the case due to the stalling tactics employed by the defense, which presented countless motions and appeals. As a result, in September 2020 family members of the victims of the 2008 postelection violence refused to attend further court hearings, blaming the Prosecutor General’s Office for turning the trial into a farce and not taking effective measures to move the case forward. Following the Constitutional Court decision that the criminal code article under which Kocharyan was charged was unconstitutional, lawyers for the families averred that the prosecution’s failure served the "interests of a specific group," a reference to Kocharyan and his associates. The investigation into others suspected of the 2008 postelection violence, including those charged with excessive use of force and murder, continued.

It is clear from the reports that political scandals in Armenia are always resolved according to the interests of different circles. Even if there are serious deaths, it doesn't matter to those circles. In short, every official in Armenia, from law enforcement agencies to the Supreme Court, knows very well who and what they are serving for.

Arrests and treatment with detainees

In terms of human rights violations, it can be said that Armenia can even be in the top ten in this field. The government, which has become an extremely ruthless force in political protests, treats the people almost as if they were on the battlefield.

This is still the visible side of the scene. But what happens behind the scenes is more dramatic. On August 4, the NGO Protection of Rights Without Borders reported that those arrested in Armenia are kept in prison by personal decisions of the police and criminal cases are opened without being questioned. Individuals are not even allowed to consult their lawyers due to legal regulations. In the worst cases, those detained can be subjected to torture, which in some cases has dire consequences.

Neglect of human rights does not consist only of the mentioned facts. For example, on April 10 of this year, the arrest and brutal beating of two Azerbaijani military servicemen as they strayed into the territory of Armenia should be considered the biggest outcry against human rights. Arresting a military serviceman of the other party without reason and beating an unarmed soldier is a manifestation of real lawlessness and arbitrariness in Armenia in general.