“We can record a positive tendency in Armenia, if by Constitution and international agreements steps are undertaken towards the fulfillment of the obligations, which we have not witnessed. Therefore, it is even an absurd to speak of any positive progress”, speaking about human rights defense in the Republic of Armenia, told human rights defender, Arthur Sakunts. As stated by him, Armenia has recorded a degradation in the field of human rights defense by 2015 constitutional changes, exactly by constitutional formulations and after that also the legislative changes formed afterwards: “But it is more concerning that the government representatives, up to the highest level, including Serzh Sargsyan, express approaches which have no common grounds with human rights and democracy in their public speeches and comments of especially latest times, even the perception of those concepts is absent in their speech. This evokes far more concerns and witnesses that we pursue the path of state degradation. On that path we ceaselessly record evident regress in human rights field, both on legal platform in legislative field, and in practice, regarding the treatment towards human rights issues. The single steps which are implemented in human rights field from the perspective of signing agreements or European courts’ decisions, they are implemented not in the sense of content, but simply as compulsory steps having no influence on the change of situation at all.”
Asked in which fields human rights defense is the most vulnerable, Sakunts replied, if we look at human rights full list, then humans in the Republic of Armenia are vulnerable from all points, both from fundamental rights, i.e. right to speech, right to protests, right to expression, fair trial, social-economic rights or from the point of any of the remaining fields, we are vulnerable.
We stated that he expressed discontents, but when we ask RPA members, they immediately oppose, saying we spread apathy, they urge us to look at Azerbaijan and see how improved we are. To this Mr. Sakunts responded: “Azerbaijan, Belarus, Turkmenistan are far behind, and we are behind not compared to them, but overall, human rights standards are important. Apathy relates to the environment of impunity exactly, which exists. And in the Republic of Armenia widespread impunity is present, we do not see the institute of punishment of the violators operating equivalent to the violations. Apathy is in there, that is, we are in a Gordian Knot. By that new social layers are included in those vulnerable groups. If 900.000 people are regarded poor, they are not only socially poor, but their fundamental rights are vulnerable. We saw during the parliamentary elections, what influence widespread vote-buying had, consequently, apathy is spread by them, by their actions.”
According to Arthur Sakunts, the existence of political persecutions and political prisoners in the Republic of Armenia already speaks of human rights vulnerability: “The latest example was Gevorg Safaryan’s case, when he was subject to not only preceding ungrounded persecution, but also they extended the former sentence before its expiration.”
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
