Statements

On obtaining false testimony through pressures and violence against journalists
05/07/09

As it has already been announced, monitoring of criminal litigations of A. Arzumanyan and S. Sirunyan on cases related to the events taken place on March 1-2 is conducted on the instructions of the Human Rights Defender of the RA Armen Harutyunyan.

During the last criminal litigations of Sasun Miqayelyan and Hakob Hakobyan on cases related to the events taken place on March 1-2 the witnesses declared about the facts of   pressures on them by pre-trial investigation bodies to obtain false testimonies: Taking into consideration the above mentioned facts the Human Rights Defender of RA on May 6 made a decision to involve other members of his staff in the monitoring group in order to monitor litigations of Sasun Miqayelyan and Hakob Hakobyan:

The Human Rights Defender of the RA Armen Harutyunyan has many times raised his concern regarding the vicious practice of obtaining false testimony by means not provided by law and regarding repressive methods of pre-trial investigation bodies in his annual reports and during his press-conferences, taking as a ground numerous applications-complaints submitted to him related to the subject in question. Though as a result of the Defender’s demand the authorized bodies have carried out examinations and none of the cases has been confirmed, however, the amount and the content of the complaints and the last announcements of witnesses in courts may be the evidence of the corresponding bodies’ manner of working.

The Human Rights Defender of the RA is strongly concerned with the practice of rough violations of the criminal-procedural rights towards witnesses and with the continuing practice of unrevealed cases of violence against journalists (last case happened on May 7 with “Shant TV” anchor Nver Mnatsakanyan) and finds that these cases threaten to form an atmosphere of fear and impunity in country.