Armenian rights defenders stress need for measures to reduce army suicides

The suicide statistics in the Armenian Army indicates an unresolved discipline problem; however, tougher sanctions for driving to suicide are not enough to reduce the figures, Arthur Sakunts and Zhanna Aleksanyan, rights defenders, believe. Khachatur Gasparyan, a psychologist, has urged to pay attention to the relationships of soldiers with officers.

Arthur Sakunts, the head of the Vanadzor office of the Helsinki Civil Assembly, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that complex measures are needed to prevent incidents in the army, namely, psychological, educational and social efforts.

Zhanna Aleksanyan, the head of the NGO "Journalists for Human Rights", believes that hazing in the army is pushing soldiers to the verge of suicides.

Ms Aleksanyan said that the NGO is now dealing with five criminal cases, which are qualified by investigators as suicides, while "there are proofs that they were murders." "A soldier died on July 24, 2019; investigators assert that the senior combat officer slapped the soldier; and the latter opened submachine gun fire, but failed to hit anyone, and then committed suicide," she has explained, while insisting that "the soldier was tortured and shot dead by staging suicide."