Armenia remains reluctant to accept UN findings

/By AzerNews/

By Mushvig Mehdiyev

Human rights in Armenia are at their toughest period since the country’s independence in 1991 as the international organization fix and report about the violations frequently over the past period.

Years of independence have failed to help the post-Soviet nation meet international organizations in terms of protecting civil liberties. It has just recently been criticized by an influential human rights center.

Geneva-based Centre for Civil and Political Rights slammed Armenia for not fulfilling the three foreground resolutions given by the United Nations Organization's Human Rights Committee.

First, Armenia has not yet implemented resolutions set by the UN including investigating into the events on March 1, 2008 and issues related to the use of force by the law enforcement bodies and their impunity, Vincent Ploton, Head of the Center's External Relations Office, said in a press-conference in Yerevan on February 11.

"The second flaw is lack of a mechanism for investigating complaints on tortures and holding the culprits liable," Ploton added.

The third drawback is Armenia’s failure to provide an independent court system, said Ploton, calling on the government to take serious steps for fulfilling the assignment.

Ploton's address once more portrayed a harsh treatment of people of different social status in Armenia orchestrated mostly by the law enforcement bodies, who are enjoying unlimited government support. Socioscope Societal Research and Consultancy Center and Helsinki Citizens' Assembly said last year that in many cases police use brutal force against people in the former Soviet country.

Anna Innocenti, representative of the Norwegian Human Right House, protector and supporter organization of local human rights organizations, highlighted the unprecedented violation and discrimination against women in Armenia.

She called on the government to officially formulate its intolerance to any homophobic discrimination and to adopt a law on equal rights for women and men in the country.

"Pursuant to the resolutions given by the UN Human Rights Committee, Armenia should pass a law providing criminal liability for domestic violence," Innocenti said.

The term of discrimination in Armenia should include all types of inequity - racial, gender, nationality, religious, noted Innocenti.

Strong discrimination is seriously terrorizing civil liberties in the smallest country of the South Caucasus. A huge gap between genders causes serious headaches to Armenia, where women undergo harsh discrimination by dominant men. Armenia has regressed in the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report 2014, as the report ranked it 103 among 142 countries.

Women in the post-Soviet land are killed in severe family conflicts, as the New York-based EurasiaNet.Org reported that five Armenian women aged between 28 and 38 were murdered by their husbands in the first two months of last year.

International organizations are still urging Armenia to eliminate the modern violent approach towards human rights, since the country wants to be part of Western community.