Lragir, Armenia
Oct 12 2007

HAMMARBERG MET SEFILYAN AND ARMAN BABAJANYAN

Thomas Hammarberg, CoE human rights commissioner, said at the
beginning of the news conference on October 11 he would decline to
answer some questions because they will be covered in the draft
report. He summed up his five-day visit to Armenia and said the
conclusion will be included in the report but first the draft report
will be extended to the Armenian government for clarification on the
existing problems, and the final report on the state of human rights
in Armenia will be ready three months later.

Hammarberg only says there is considerable progress towards
protection of human rights from the Soviet Union. It turned out that
the CoE commissioner is not fond of comparison of countries and
epochs and only states facts. Over his five days stay in Armenia he
visited almost everywhere where there are people and where human
rights can be violated, such as prisons, orphanages, old people’s
homes, homes of people with disabilities, neighborhoods of refugees,
the area of the disaster, the office of the ombudsman, and met with
the leadership of Armenia. Hammarberg found out that the legislation
is complete but there are problems with its application.

Among problems Thomas Hammarberg points to the dependence of the
judicial system, namely the decisions of courts aimed to please the
procuracy even though the powers of the procuracy have been limited.
The CoE human rights commissioner says he raised the issue of
violence in investigation. Hammarberg says there is evidence to
violence, and he told the government it may stain the entire judicial
system.

Thomas Hammarberg expressed concern on the circumstance that the
Armenian legislation still defines insult as a crime and provides for
a criminal sentence. Besides, the human rights commissioner
emphasized the issue of diversification of the media, namely
television, to enable all the classes of the society to express their
opinion. Thomas Hammarberg is going to expand these issues in the
draft report which will be extended to the Armenian government. The
CoE human rights commissioner says he is going to consider separate
worrying cases he observed during the visits to prisons and meetings
with inmates but he declined to provide more detail, preferring
efforts to solve these problems to talks about them. He answered
similarly the question of the reporters about his impression from the
meetings with Arman Babajanyan, Jirair Sefilyan and other persons
considered in Armenia as political prisoners. Hammarberg said he is
going to discuss his individual observations with the government as
soon as the draft report is ready. In answer to the question if the
report is binding for the Armenian government, Hammarberg said
formally it is not but he hopes that in reality it will be.