Scapegoat human rights in Armenia

/AzerNews/

By Mushvig Mehdiyev

Human rights face serious challenges in Armenia, since there is unlimited power of police and other law enforcement bodies to use against the ordinary people, journalists and activists. The regular and most recent attacks against activists prove the tragic situation of human rights in the post-Soviet state.

Armenians undergo ill-treatment by the law-enforcement bodies, police in particular. One of the recent joint surveys by the local Socioscope Societal Research and Consultancy Center and Helsinki Citizens' Assembly has revealed police as the top violator of human rights in Armenia.

The research reported the Armenian police to be main disturbers of human rights in the post-Soviet country. The investigators, detectives and other police employees emerged as the main violators of rights with 25.9 percent share in the overall index. The survey said the capital city Yerevan was the main center of the breach of the civil liberties with 68 percent index, while the other regions witnessed 32 percent of the violation by police.

Protection of human rights remains as one of the top problematic fields in Armenia. Influential human rights organizations has repeatedly criticized the traditional violation of civil liberties in the country. According to Amnesty International, human rights violations have been prevalent almost at every national election in Armenia. Ten people were killed in the 2008 post-election protests, while the presidential elections in February 2013 saw numerous irregularities, including violence against observers by local officials.

Western countries attach great importance and attention to the protection of human rights, freedom of expression as the key principles in their domestic policy. This factor blocks Armenia's way to Europe due to the miserable condition of civil liberties in the country.

The World Report 2014 of the Human Rights Watch exposed the freedom of expression to be taken hostage by the authorities in the South Caucasus country. Pluralism lacks in Armenian broadcast media, since most of the media outlets prefer to hide the ongoing events in the country, rather than working for public awareness.

The Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly's Vanadzor office reported 29 non-combat army deaths, including seven suicides in Armenia as of October 31, 2014. Local human rights groups complained about the defense ministry’s naive approach to adequately investigate and expose the circumstances of non-combat deaths.

A huge gap between genders cause serious headaches to Armenia, where women undergo harsh discrimination by dominant men. Armenia has regressed in the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report 2014, as the report ranked it 103 among 142 countries.

Violation against women reached its climax in Armenia, where women are even killed in severe family conflicts. The New York-based EurasiaNet.Org reported that five Armenian women aged between 28 and 38 were murdered by their husbands in the first two months of this year.

International organizations criticize the poor condition of human rights in their annual reports, hoping the civil liberties to get rid of violations.