UN report on Armenia presented in Geneva, rights defenders object to some conclusions

Armenian human rights activists have already criticized certain provisions of the UN report on Armenia that was presented today in Geneva.

The report, already posted in English on the UN website, was presented by Margaret Sekaggya, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders.

Speaking at the report presentation, the official Armenia's representative told about the proposal of the Armenian President to set up a working group on human rights and willingness to continue working towards defence of human rights with account of Special Rapporteur's conclusions.

According to Melissa Brown, who represented the movement "Political Prisoners' Wives", the report failed to describe the actions of the main infringer of human rights in Armenia - the state.

Mikael Danielyan, Chairman of the Armenian Helsinki Association, treated the recommendations of the Rapporteur to Armenian NGOs to more actively cooperate with the Armenian Ombudsman as senseless, as he believes, the Ombudsman is "the person of power and will definitely execute all the instructions of the authorities."

Artak Zeynalyan, representing the organization named "Lawyers Against Torture", said that the words spoken at the sitting differed from the essence of the report. "At the sitting the Rapporteur said that the state was the main infringer of human rights. However, the authors of the report had failed to see and mention this 'elephant'."

Ane Tusvik Bonde, Regional Manager for Eastern Europe and the Caucasus of the "Human Rights House", noted in her comment on today's action of rights defenders in front of the UN building, that "it is important to increase awareness of UN officials about restrictions on the freedom of expression and assembly in Southern Caucasus."

"Therefore, we make use of various tools, for example, protest actions outside the UN building in parallel with the activities inside the UN, aimed at attracting the attention of international community. We condemn the ever-increasing repressions on the civil society and draw special attention to the arrests and torture of activists of the youth movement of Azerbaijan, which have grown frequent in recent weeks," said Ms Bonde.

Let us remind you that arrests of youth activists in Azerbaijan became more frequent after a group was founded in the Facebook social network named "March 11 - the Great People's Day", the organizers of which call the users to demonstrate their civil stand and express their will for democratic changes in Azerbaijan. Human rights activists believe that detentions and arrests have to do with this action, but spokesmen for the authorities deny this.

With regard to Armenia, as the "Caucasian Knot" has reported, the opposition asserts that there are political prisoners in the country and demands that the authorities release them and undertake an independent, impartial, transparent and credible investigation into the events that took place in Yerevan on March 1, 2008, after the presidential election on February 19 that year. The authorities insist that there are no political prisoners in Armenia, and the fate of detainees is decided by fair courts.

Currently, Armenian prisons keep several opposition activists. In the last three months Felix Gevorkyan, Ashot Manukyan, Musheg Sagatelyan and Gabriel Gabrielyan went at large. Note that most of the opposition activists, some 35 persons, were released under the law "On Amnesty", which was adopted by the National Assembly of Armenia in June 2009.