On May 31, 2009, Mr. Arshaluys Hakobyan a member of the Armenian Helsinki Association and press photographer of the official website of the organisation (www.hahr.am), had monitored the elections for the Mayor of Yerevan together with a group of observers. In their capacities as observers representing the Helsinki Association, Mr. Hakobyan and the group visited polling station N° 8/23 in Malatia-Sebastia district, Yerevan. The members and head of the electoral commission blocked their way preventing them from carrying out the monitoring process. The group was eventually taken outside the polling station and the doors were locked. The observers were subsequently threatened with corporal punishment.
Following the aforementioned incidents, Mr. Hakobyan filed a complaint with the Special Investigation Department. On June 5, 2009, he was summoned by the Investigation Department to give testimonies. Nevertheless, he refused going there and stated that he would only go to the Investigation Department provided they would hand over an official summons. Later on, two police officers went to Mr. Hakobyan’s with a “summons”, which nevertheless contained no information about the criminal case or the reason as to why he was being summoned.
Mr. Hakobyan refused to sign the paper alleging it was not valid. However, after pressuring him, the police officers eventually forced him to sign. Mr. Hakobyan, who was not wearing his contact lenses at that time, signed in the wrong place, which made the police officers angry. In spite of asking the police officers to leave, the officers asked for police reinforcement, and took him to the Police Department of Kentron District, in Yerevan, where he underwent beatings and other ill-treatments. He was handcuffed and then taken to the Investigation Department of Kentron District, where he was denied access to a lawyer. He was subsequently charged with “violence against a Government representative”, under Article 316 part 1 of the Armenian Criminal Code. Following questioning, he was taken to a pre-detention cell. As of issuing this press release, Mr. Hakobyan remains detained in the Nubarashen penitentiary institution.
On June 6, 2009, the Court of First Instance for Kentron and Nork-Marash districts confirmed Mr. Hakobyan’s arrest as a preventive punishment. The date of his trial is still not known as the investigation is ongoing.
Mr. Hakobyan has currently the possibility to have contacts with his family and was granted access to a lawyer. On June 11, 2009, members of the “prison monitoring group”, composed of various representatives of civil society, visited Mr. Hakobyan in the Nubarashen penitentiary institution, and reported numerous injuries on different parts of his body (legs, hands, back and head). Such injuries were reportedly registered in a medical folder upon his arrival in this penitentiary institution.
Our organisations express their deep concern about Mr. Arshaluys Hakobyan’s arbitrary arrest and firmly condemn the above-mentioned acts of ill-treatment against him, which seem to merely aim at sanctioning his human rights activities, and call upon the Armenian authorities to guarantee in all circumstances his physical and psychological integrity, in conformity with the 1998 United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, with the Declaration of the Committee of Ministers on Council of Europe action to improve the protection of human rights defenders and promote their activities, and with the 2007 Resolution of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly on Strengthening OSCE Engagement with Human Rights Defenders and National Human Rights Institutions.
Our organisations further urge the Armenian authorities to release Mr. Hakobyan immediately and unconditionally. to order a thorough, immediate, effective and impartial investigation into the above-mentioned facts, the result of which must be made public, in order to identify all those responsible, bring them before a competent, independent and impartial tribunal and apply to them the sanctions provided by the law and, more generally, to put an end to all acts of harassment against all human rights defenders in Armenia.
Our organisations also call upon the Commissioner for Human Rights of the CoE to act in accordance with operative paragraph 4 of the CoE Declaration on Human Rights Defenders with regards to this situation. We further urge the European Commission Delegation as well as European Union (EU) Member-States embassies in Armenia to call upon Armenian authorities to comply with the relevant international norms and standards and take action on the above-mentioned human rights violations, in line with the EU Guidelines on Human Rights Defenders.
For further information, please contact:
· FIDH : Karine Appy, + 33 1 43 55 25 18
· OMCT : Delphine Reculeau, + 41 22 809 49 39
· Civil Society Institute : +374 10 574317