ARMENIAN HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS PREDICT HARSHER ENVIRONMENT
Institute for War and Peace Reporting, UK
IWPR Caucasus Reporting #761
Dec 10 2014
As activists mark Human Rights Day 2014, they say things are likely
to get worse once the country is part of Russia’s political project.
By Arevik Sahakyan
Human rights defenders in Armenia are warning that civil liberties
and press freedom could be eroded once the country joins Moscow’s
new Eurasian union. One early sign of this is a plan to copy Russia’s
restrictions on non-government groups.
“We are about to face great challenges,” says Avetik Ishkhanyan of
the Helsinki Committee of Armenia.
Armenia will become a member of the Eurasian Economic Union in January,
joining the three states already part of its predecessor, the Customs
Union – Russia, Kazakstan and Belarus. A fifth country, Kyrgyzstan,
is finalising arrangements to join. The grouping is formally a
European Union-style bloc with common trade tariffs and harmonised
legislation. Many analysts, however, believe it is also a political
structure that will inevitably be dominated by Moscow. This feeling
has only strengthened since Russia took on Ukraine and fell out with
the West.
In Armenia, there are fears that the government will fall into line
by adopting the kind of retrograde legislation seen in Russia. To take
one example, Kyrgyzstan – for the last two decades Central Asia’s most
liberal state – now has a bill before parliament that would impose
severe restrictions on what has up to now been a thriving community
of NGOs. This law is inspired by Russian legislation passed in 2012,
and would force civil society groups to register as “foreign agents”.
(See Kyrgyzstan Follows Russia Backwards on NGO Rights .) In both
Kyrgyzstan and Kazakstan, there are moves to copy Russia’s 2013 law
banning “gay propaganda”.
Now the Armenian justice ministry has come up with a similar bill
designed to restrict NGOs’ freedom to operate.
“This law completely throws into question the independent activity of
public [non-government] organisations,” Ishkhanian told IWPR. “That
is very much in keeping with the policy of restricting NGO activities
all across the Eurasian Economic Union.”
“POLITICAL” DETENTIONS
Artur Sakunts, head of the Vanadzor office of the Helsinki Assembly,
is gloomy about the prospects for broader observance of basic rights
once Armenia joins the Eurasian bloc.
He argues that this year has seen a marked downturn in the rights
environment, and argues that Armenia has gone back to being a country
with political prisoners.
Sakunts cited two cases, one of them that of Volodya Avetisyan, a
retired colonel convicted of fraud and given a six-year jail term in
July. Supporters say his real crime was to organise a protest calling
for better welfare provision for Armenians who fought in the Nagorny
Karabakh war of the early 1990s.
The second case is that of Shant Harutyunyan, who took part in a small
anti-government demonstration in the capital Yerevan last year. He
was given six years after a trial in October. Other participants
were also convicted, including Harutyunan’s son, a minor, who got a
probationary term.
Two opposition parties, Heritage and the Armenian National Congress,
have declared Harutyunyan a political prisoner.
According to Sakunts, the nature of the evidence which led to guilty
verdicts in both cases suggests that what they were really about was
“political persecution”.
Armenia’s justice minister, Hovhannes Manukyan, insists no one is
incarcerated for political reasons.
“None of the reports or reviews indicates that there are any political
prisoners,” he said.
ATTACKS ON RIGHTS DEFENDERS
Another worrying development is the attacks on the human rights
community that look random but are clearly targeted.
On November, Gevorg Safaryan, a member of the Pre-Parliament group,
was assaulted in Yerevan, and six cars belonging to members of the
same organisation were torched. The Pre-Parliament group had recently
announced plans to stage anti-government demonstrations.
In Ishkhanyan’s view, “This was an unprecedented case of political
persecution, and I doubt any of the culprits will ever be found.”
His colleague Sakunts suspects the authorities of employing freelance
thugs to carry out attacks on their political opponents, a tactic
which allows them to insist they are not behind the violence.
INROADS ON FREE SPEECH
Media-watchers believe freedom of expression is now under attack,
as well.
Between January and the start of October, rights groups recorded
seven physical assaults on journalists in Armenia. That is the same
number recorded for the whole of 2013, a year in which a presidential
election took place – a significant point, according to Ashot Melikyan,
head of the Committee for the Protection of Free Speech.
“Since cases of violence against journalists increase during elections,
the figure for this year [2014] can be seen as retrograde,” he
explained.
Melikyan also points to formal attempts to curb free speech, for
example a bill designed to make media outlets legally liable for
comments posted by anonymous web users. (See Armenia Mulls Web Libel
Law.) The legislation was blocked by a concerted campaign mounted by
Armenian journalists.
The latest Internet Freedom report from the Washington-based watchdog
Freedom House gives Armenia a significantly better score than any of
the other Eurasian union members.
Another troubling precedent has been set by a case in which the
prosecution service took court action against two media outlets,
the Hraparak newspaper and the Ilur.am news site, to force them to
reveal sources of information. (For more, see Armenian Media Fight
for Confidentiality Right .)
“All this is a covert attempt to impose censorship,” Melikyan said.
OTHER CONCERNS
Human rights defenders interviewed by IWPR pointed to alarming trends
in other areas.
Sakunts said police and continued to use violence against detainees,
and with near-impunity since most prosecutions of officers were
subsequently dropped.
Campaigners also see a major pension reform involving the introduction
of mandatory contributions as an unconstitutional attack on personal
and property rights. After Armenia’s Constitutional Court deemed the
legislation unlawful, the government responded by amending it rather
than dropping it altogether. (See Armenian Government Won’t Backtrack
on Pension Reform.)
Meri Khachatryan, a lawyer with the Dem Em group which has been
fighting the pensions reform, told IWPR she hoped the Constitutional
Court would now reject the government’s revised version.
She also pointed to two other laws she saw as infringements on social
and labour rights – one reducing maternity pay , and the other setting
out new tax rules for retailers.
Sakunts describes 2014 as a “dismal year” for human rights in Armenia,
and predicts that things can only get worse once the country is part
of the Russian-led bloc.
“If the Armenian government had any intention of altering human rights
protections [for the better], it would never have decided to join the
Eurasian Economic Union, in which respect for human rights is absent
at a structural level,” he said.
Arevik Sahakyan is a freelance reporter in Armenia.
https://iwpr.net/global-voices/armenian-human-rights-defenders-predict-harsher-environment