Yesterday, the Women’s Rights Defenders held a demonstration at the Prosecutor’s Office. The demonstration was focused on 20-year-old Maro Guloyan’s case, which, according to the official version, hung herself in her own bathroom. The case was filed as a criminal case, which, however, was quashed and, thus, the investigation body extending the case for about a year, found out that Maro’s husband, Gevorg Guloyan, did not anyhow contribute to the ‘suicide’. Nevertheless, people gathered at the Prosecutor’s Office believed that he had contributed to the suicide by using violence and humiliations against the wife. The issue, of course, is a legal one, there should not be any preconceived attitude. Another circumstance is quite attractive: usually the Women’s Rights Defenders NGOs, especially, deserve a negative attitude from a part of the society. Such approaches are usually demonstrated by three public groups: a/ by advocates of “traditional national values”, who believe that only ‘grant-eaters’ are engaged in human rights defend, and the so-called “European value” is simply an exhortation of immorality, b/ by men based on ‘sexual solidarity’, c/ by mothers-in-law as sponsor and organizer of domestic violence.
The first and last groups are hopeless: if a person believes that violence is a national value, or, believes that she is going to reimburse her own suffering when once she was a daughter-in-law by torturing her own daughter-in-law, it is very difficult to dissuade these two groups. I hope for men. Have you noticed no men ever participate in such demonstrations? They probably consider it something like a betrayal of masculine race. Whereas, when you see that a representative of your group, in this case of your gender, has done something wrong, this, I’m sure, increases the value of your group (gender).
Therefore, men should protect women’s rights, those with white complexion should fight against racial discrimination, and vice versa, the Christians should strive for Muslims to be able to freely express their religious feelings, and vice versa, the same for Sunni and Shiites, Catholics and Protestants. We, having normal orientation, should protest when the advocates of “traditional national values” attack a cafe, where, in their opinion, homosexuals are gathered. The supporters of power and those indifferent to the policy must fight for the young opposition Tigran Arakelyan to set free a day early. And Tigran after becoming free must fight that no policeman has a nose bleeding.
It is very easy to protect a representative of your own group, gang, sex and race. It is much more difficult to protect just a human
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
