ARMENIAN VERSION OF CORRUPTION AND HUMAN RIGHTS: MAKING THE CONNECTION REPORT REPRESENTED IN YEREVAN

Noyan Tapan
July 22, 2009

YEREVAN, JULY 22, NOYAN TAPAN. The USAID Mobilizing Action Against
Corruption Activity (MAAC), RA Ombudsman’s Office and International
Council on Human Rights Policy (ICHRP) represented the Armenian version
of the ICHRP Corruption and Human Rights: Making the Connection report
on July 22.

In RA Ombudsman Armen Haroutiunian’s words, corruption is today a
serious problem for Armenia, and a considerable part of the complaints
got by the Ombudsman’s Office relates to the facts of corruption. "This
is the phenomenon the struggle with which is rather difficult and which
is deeply rooted in our society," A. Harutiunian said. In his words,
one must not pay attention to punishments in the struggle against
corruption but must be able to root out those phenomena with the help
of a number of institutes and reduce them with the help of preventive
mechanisms. In A. Harutiunian’s words, while the corruption has such
large scales in the country, it is difficult to speak about an ordinary
citizen and harmonious mutual relations of state structures.

ICHRP Robert Archer mentioned that the corruption in Armenia has a
wide spreading in different spheres, starting from the judicial system
to small structures. In his words, though a number of anti-corruption
events are implemented in Armenia during the recent years, but there
are numerous problems.

MAAC President Francois Vezina stated that according to surveys of
the Transparency International organization, Armenia has received
2.93 points over last 6 years measured by the 10-point scale. He also
mentioned that Armenia shows good indexes among the South Caucasian and
Central Asian states but it has still much to do at the world level.

To recap, the 4th Anti-Corruption Conference organized by the MAAC
and ICHRP took place in Yerevan on the same day.