The pre-election
campaign is not meant to provide people with public scenes of mutual
accusations, insults and swearing.
Mutual
accusations, swearing and insults, combined with rhetoric associated with
violence, prevail over substantive issues.
Moreover,
it turns out that even the society has already learned that when one side
insults, swears at or accuses the other one, the public starts to wait
impatiently for what or how the other side will respond.
The impression is that the one who blames
more, swears or insults with louder and newer words is stronger. Then the
supporters of political parties or public figures swear and insult each other
with the same words.
As a result of all this, the public discourse
is almost entirely filled only with topics of dispute over power.
In the pre-election period, the issues that
concern people in real life, which have been raised for years by the annual and
the ad-hoc reports of the Human Rights Defender, should be the subject of
discussion.
In
addition to basic security issues, for example:
• How
will the deepening isolation of the families in a difficult situation from the
society be eliminated, how will their integration into public life be ensured?
• How will it be ensured that the parent of a
child with a disability does not have to take care of the child at home instead
of taking them to school and kindergarten, while they get fired for taking care
of the child and the family lives in isolation from society?
• How
will it be excluded that a person in the midst of endless bureaucratic and
judicial hassles of the free medical care or social security system, who, for
example, is trying to get their pension or undergo a medical examination, does
not feel like a "ball" in a tennis tournament when everyone sends them
endlessly from one place to another without resolving the issue?
• How will it be ensured that people are not
forgotten in psychiatric institutions due to legal and chronic administrative
deficiencies, but receive real treatment for the purpose of returning to full
life?
• How
will it be ensured that the penitentiary system ceases to be punitive, serves
to prepare a person for release and ensures his full integration into real life
not only by the self-deception of the beautiful statements made on paper, but
also in reality?
• How
will the delays and hassles in the examination of cases in different
administrative bodies and courts be resolved, as a result of which people will
be irreparably harmed, etc.?
It is
obvious that instead of raising such real problems and offering solutions,
mutual insults and swearing, any rhetoric associated with hatred and violence
deepens the polarization and the vicious division into groups.
Mr.
Arman Tatoyan
Human
Rights Defender of Armenia
Հայերեն
