12:56, 23 January 2020

Armenian parliament allows police tapping citizens' phone conversations

A session of the Armenian parliament. Photo: REUTERS/Hayk Baghdasaryan/Photolure

Rights defenders are wary about the bill that allows the Armenian police to tap citizens' phone calls.

If adopted, the bill will allow the police to tap the phone conversations of the citizens, who figure as suspects, without the mediation of the National Security Service (NSS).

Nina Karapetyants, a rights defender and the head of the Helsinki Association of Armenia, believes that such wiretappings were conducted earlier, but "the granted additional powers will make it possible to tap phone calls for any reason."

According to her story, the NSS had tapped citizens’ phone calls before, even without a court sanction, especially in high-profile cases, such as Zirair Sefilyan’s one.

Zhanna Aleksanyan, a rights defender and the head of the NGO “Journalists for the Sake of Law”, treats the expansion of police’s powers as “an invasion into humans’ privacy.”

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on January 22, 2020 at 09:48 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.

Author: Armine Martirosyan

Source: CK correspondent