Armenian Ombudsman: in 2008, most complaints were against police

Human rights are still trampled on in Armenia. The Ombudsman's office received most of the complaints related to human rights violations - 259 out of 4090 - against the police. Courts were runners-up, then - the Mayoralty. These are the data from the report for 2008, presented by Armenian Ombudsman Armen Arutyunyan to the National Assembly.

According to his version, apart from the police, courts and Mayoralty, among the agencies, which were most frequent violators of human rights were the ministries of labour and social matters, of justice, defence, public health, education and sciences. The smallest number of complaints - only nine - were against the National Security Service.

Special attention in the Ombudsman's report is given to the events on March 1, 2008. According to Armen Arutyunyan, his office received plenty applications and protests against the actions of the police during the March events.

"The actions of the prosecutor's office and special investigatory bodies of Armenia were repressive. We are most worried of the wrongful actions on March 1-2, 2008, of employees of the Armenian police, who applied violence, made prosecutions and committed mass arrests.

Law enforcers applied violence to activists of the opposition during the so-called "political walks", monitoring of telephone conversations of oppositionists, etc.," Armen Arutyunyan has stated.