The studies conducted by both local and international organizations reveal continuous ill-treatment and torture cases in Armenia, human rights activist Avetik Ishkhanyan said at the conference on the Human Rights Defender’s 10 years of activity in torture prevention launched in Yerevan on Wednesday.
Ishkhanyan, who heads the Helsinki Committee of Armenia NGO, stressed the situation in police has always raised concerns.
“The cases of inhuman or degrading treatment and torture in police were generally revealed to the public after those cases had a tragic outcome or the victims of violence were political activists who voiced about them,” he said.
The situation, according to the lawyer, was somehow changed after Armenia joined the Council of Europe in 2001, but no serious changes have taken place so far.
Armenia’s first Ombudsman Larisa Alaverdyan, in attendance of the conference, drew attention to the fact that sometimes expired medications are given to convicts at Armenia’s penitentiaries.
Meantime, she stressed the situation of the women rights violations in jails has gone worse in the recent years.