On January 5, The Human Rights Defender Anahit Manasyan
hosted the former Vice President of the European Court of Human Rights,
Baroness Françoise Tulkens, and the Ambassador Extraordinary and
Plenipotentiary of the Kingdom of Belgium to Armenia, H.E. Mr. Eric De Muynck.
Welcoming the guests, Anahit Manasyan presented the
priorities of the activities of the Defender’s Office. In this context, she
emphasized the importance of the activities carried out in the direction of the
protection of the rights of children, women and persons with disabilities,
emphasizing her determination to continue the work on the fight against
intolerance, discrimination and hate speech, and ensuring equality of rights
within the context of her mandate.
The Defender noted that these phenomena are widespread
both throughout the world and in Armenia, which is unacceptable. Of particular
concern is the use of hate speech in the academic community, by politicians and
public figures, as well as in the media. The Defender especially emphasized
that any manifestation of hate speech should be excluded from public speech.
Anahit Manasyan also emphasized the importance of police
reforms also from the viewpoint of the Human Rights Defender’s institution.
Issues related to the right to freedom of assembly and
the right to freedom of speech were also discussed.
Within the framework of the meeting, issues related to
the protection of the rights of people forcibly displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh
were presented.
The Defender referred to the fact-finding activities
conducted both by her personally and by the staff of the Defender’s office,
during which information about deaths, tortures, disrespect of bodies,
mutilations and ill-treatment of civilians and other cases prohibited by
international law as a result of Azerbaijani aggression was received.
The information mentioned was included in the ad hoc
report of the Human Rights Defender, which along with the closed section proving the
authenticity of the information was the first to be presented by the Defender
to international organizations and actors with a mandate to protect human
rights, including the International Court of Justice of the United Nations, as
a meticulous record delineating the cases of human rights violations.
In their turn, Ambassador Eric De Muynck and Baroness
Françoise Tulkens expressed their gratitude for the warm welcome and also
congratulated Anahit Manasyan on her election as a member of the European
Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment (CPT).
At the end of the meeting, the interlocutors outlined the
possible directions of cooperation.
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