Armenian rights defenders worry about situation in corrective establishments

About a dozen of human rights organizations of Armenia have disseminated a joint statement with a concern about the state of things in Criminal Corrective Establishments (CCEs) of the country, in particular, that they are overcrowded.

The Andrei Sakharov Armenian Human Rights Centre, Institute of Civil Society, Cooperation Centre in the Name of Democracy, Vanadzor Office of the Helsinki Civil Assembly and other human rights organizations assert in their statement that the population of prisoners kept today at the CCEs went up this year by 20 percent against 2009 and makes 4850 persons, whereas the capacity of the prisons is 4396 inmates.

The human rights activists call the competent bodies to take steps for settling the problem of overcrowded prisons, for example, to apply arrest only in exclusive cases. "We address the National Assembly and President with an appeal to change the procedure of early relief and adopt amnesty," they state.

According to the press service of the Ministry of Justice, the monitoring of the situation in Armenian CCEs has revealed also organizational-and-legal problems in prisons. It is reported that in the last six months 10 deaths of prisoners were registered, on some of them materials were prepared and criminal cases initiated.