Arka News Agency, Armenia
Oct 26 2006
MONITORING OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN ARMENIA FORMAL
YEREVAN, October 26. /ARKA/. The monitoring of the human rights
sector in Armenia is formal, Chairman of the Helsinki Committee of
Armenia Avetik Ishkhanyan told reporters today. He pointed out that
the values proclaimed in Armenia are mostly declarative.
Ishkhanyan reported the human rights sector has been long closed for
surveys, and only since 2001, after Armenia’s admission to the
Council of Europe, monitoring of human rights has become systematic.
He said that the availability of conducting monitoring at
institutions of confinement since 2001 can be considered the
progress.
"However, a group of public observers does not have a possibility to
visit police departments, but only places of imprisonment before
trial, though lawless actions take place mostly at police
departments," he said.
Ishkhanyan also pointed out that the close structure for monitoring
are still the armed forces of the country, in spite the fact that
they are included in the list of obligations before the CE.
"Some public organizations have access to the armed forces, however
the army infrastructure is mostly closed for the public. We learn
about happenings in the army from parents and relatives of the
servicemen, mostly about tragic incidents," he said.
In this relation, the HCA chairman said that monitoring of human
rights is aimed not only at revealing the situation in a specific
sector, but first of all making an impact on it. R.O. -0–