Sadly, swearing has become a vicious phenomenon in this election campaign. The Human Rights Defender (Ombudsman) of Armenia, Arman Tatoyan, wrote this on Facebook in connection with the campaign season ahead of the snap parliamentary elections on Sunday.

"Various political forces and figures are cursing each other directly in public—with vulgar words, insults with a sexual nature.

I caution that the words of your swearing spread quickly among the people, then people swear at each other, swear at you with the words you yourselves have used.

There are cases when, although they complain about the swearing, they also wait impatiently for that swearing to be actively spread on fake and real [social media] pages, pretending to be a victim and swearing more.

At the same time, with artificial attacks from the fake [social media] pages supporting some [political] force or figure, they start demanding that the Human Rights Defender address each word of the cursing separately and give an assessment of specific situations.

Swearing—especially doing it in public—aggravates the atmosphere, increases the tension. It should not be made part of the public agenda.

I strongly demand from all political forces and figures to stop the vicious behavior of developing a public agenda of and openly encouraging swearing," Tatoyan added in particular.