Avetik Ishkhanyan: In many cases the use of force by police officers has been not only excessive, but also illegal, arbitrary

“About a week ago the Armenian government was defeated by the civil society in Geneva. We are not satisfied at all with it as I do not think that the issues that were voiced there could not be tackled here, in Armenia,” President of Rule of Law NGO, Member of Justice League of Open Society Foundations-Armenia Artak Zeynalyan noted during today’s public discussion on the topic “The realisation of the absolute right of refraining from torture and other cruel and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

On 23-24 November 59th session of the UN Committee against Torture was held during which the Partnership for Open Society Initiative presented the observations regarding the implementation of UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment in Armenia.
A. Zeynalyan noted that the objective observers in Geneva ruled out that the civil society is right.

“Was not it possible to settle the issues raised by the civil society in Armenia so that it did not require transnational protection measures? It is quite possible as the right is prescribed by the RA Constitution. This is called realization of the right to participate in state and local governing when people, even a small group, put forward an issue in front of the state authorities. The issue is likely to be solved and a mandatory rule of behavior might be adopted due to settling such an issue. This is a pattern characteristic to the civil society,” the advocate noted.

He added that he offers to introduce such a mechanism in Armenia as the Armenian people is granted this rights pursuant to the Constitution which stipulates that the officials acting on behalf of the Armenian people must defend the human rights, including the right of avoiding torture and inhuman treatment.

David Khachatryan, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Open Society Foundations-Armenia, Expert and Member of WWF-Armenia Justice Group, noted that the issues voiced by them fully match the concerns of the Committee against Torture of the Council of Europe. In his words in spite of the changes made in the Criminal Code in 2015 which defines the torture in Article 1 other forms of cruel treatment have not been criminalized yet.

“Other forms of Ill-treatment, namely the inhuman and degrading treatment have not been criminalized. In such cases how can the lawmakers tell if the specific case is a torture or another form of Ill-treatment,” he noted.

Chairman of the Helsinki Citizens' Assembly Vanadzor Office, Member of WWF-Armenia Justice Group Artur Sakunts said that all the points presented during the session were not new both to the civil society representatives and to the authorities. 

“The main issued referred to being informed of the basic rights when under detention, registration of people, provision of the appropriate legal assistance, contact with relatives, realization of independent medical examinations,” he added.

In his words the questions presented in the initial documents of the committee indicate the state of impunity in our country.

Avetik Ishkhanyan, Founder and President of the Helsinki Committee of Armenia, spoke about the use of adequate or excessive force by police officers.

“Sometimes we argue whether the used force was adequate or inadequate. Firstly we should discuss whether the use of force was legal before coming to the issue of excessive force usage. Our observations show that in many cases the use of force has been not only excessive, but also inappropriate and illegal. We have studied 130 cases of public gatherings and during a number of cases the police officers have imposed force,” he added. 

In connection with the torture inflicted on the inmates in penitentiaries Advocate, Member of Justice Group Hayk Alumyan told Panorama.am that if one or two such cases are registered in a year this is already a problem.

“Torture is an extreme forms of ill-treatment and I am afraid we have a serious issue in this regard,” the advocate noted.