Torture by Police, Forced Disappearance & Other Ill Treatment In the early years of the 21st Century, 2000 to
2025 gvnet.com/torture/
Armenia.htm
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CAUTION: The following links
have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in Armenia. Some of these links may lead to websites
that present allegations that are unsubstantiated or even false. No
attempt has been made to validate their authenticity or to verify their content. HOW TO USE THIS WEBPAGE Students If you are looking
for material to use in a term-paper, you are advised to scan the postings on
this page and others to see which aspects of Torture by Authorities are of particular
interest to you. You might be
interested in exploring the moral justification for inflicting pain or
inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment in order to obtain critical
information that may save countless lives, or to elicit a confession for a
criminal act, or to punish someone to teach him a lesson outside of the
courtroom. Perhaps your paper might
focus on some of the methods of torture, like fear, extreme temperatures,
starvation, thirst, sleep deprivation, suffocation, or immersion in freezing water On the other
hand, you might choose to write about the people acting in an official
capacity who perpetrate such cruelty.
There is a lot to the subject of Torture by Authorities. Scan other countries as well as this
one. Draw comparisons between activity
in adjacent countries and/or regions.
Meanwhile, check out some of the Term-Paper
resources that are available on-line. ***
ARCHIVES *** Council of Europe
anti-torture Committee announces periodic visits to eight countries in 2023 European Committee
for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment CPT, 27 July 2022 [accessed 28 July
2022] The European
Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment (CPT) has announced today its 2023 programme
of periodic visits. The Committee
intends to examine the treatment of persons deprived of their liberty in the
following countries: Albania, Armenia,
Cyprus, Hungary, Luxembourg, Malta, North Macedonia, and the Slovak Republic. 2020 Country Reports
on Human Rights Practices: Armenia U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, 30 March 2021 www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/armenia/
[accessed 4 July
2021] TORTURE AND OTHER
CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT There were reports
of abuse in police stations, which, unlike prisons and police detention
facilities, were not subject to public monitoring. Criminal justice bodies
continued to rely on confessions and information obtained during questioning
to secure convictions. According to human rights lawyers, procedural
safeguards against mistreatment during police questioning, such as
inadmissibility of evidence obtained through force or procedural violations,
were insufficient. According to human rights lawyers, the videotaping in
police stations was not effective in providing safeguards against abuse,
given that the same police stations had control over the servers storing the
recordings and were able to manipulate them. PRISON AND DETENTION
CENTER CONDITIONS There were reports of
abuse in police stations, which, unlike prisons and police detention
facilities, were not subject to public monitoring. Criminal justice bodies
continued to rely on confessions and information obtained during questioning
to secure convictions. According to human rights lawyers, procedural
safeguards against mistreatment during police questioning, such as
inadmissibility of evidence obtained through force or procedural violations,
were insufficient. According to human rights lawyers, the videotaping in police
stations was not effective in providing safeguards against abuse, given that
the same police stations had control over the servers storing the recordings
and were able to manipulate them. According to the
ombudsman and the PMG, impunity related to the deaths of inmates and the lack
of a systemic approach to their prevention continued to be one of the most
significant human rights problems in prison. There were no investigations
into the circumstances of deaths due to illness, such as whether an illness
was acquired due to incarceration or if the illness had been preventable or
treatable. Freedom House
Country Report 2020 Edition freedomhouse.org/country/armenia/freedom-world/2020 [accessed 14 May
2020] F3. IS THERE PROTECTION FROM THE ILLEGITIMATE
USE OF PHYSICAL FORCE AND FREEDOM FROM WAR AND INSURGENCIES? Reports of police
abuse of detainees and poor conditions in prisons persist. After the change
in government in 2018, law enforcement agencies renewed dormant
investigations into past cases of physical violence by police. Human
rights activist: Ill-treatment, torture continue in Armenia Panorama.am, 28
November 2018 www.panorama.am/en/news/2018/11/28/Ill-treatment-torture-Armenia/2039524 [accessed 1 December
2, 2018] 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. Human
Rights Watch World Report 2015 - Events of 2014 Human Rights Watch,
29 January 2015 www.hrw.org/world-report/2015/...
or
www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/wr2015_web.pdf [accessed 18 March
2015] ARMENIA TORTURE AND
ILL-TREATMENT IN CUSTODY - Local human rights activists report the continued use
of torture and ill-treatment in custody, including in police stations and
pretrial detention to coerce confessions, as well as in prisons and other
facilities. Some victims file complaints; many decline, fearing retaliation
and further ill-treatment. The authorities do not always conduct thorough and
impartial investigations. According to the
Armenian Helsinki Association, authorities have refused to investigate
credible allegations that Yerevan police beat, pulled the hair of, and
threatened to harm relatives of Aik Agamalyan, 16, to coerce a confession to an April 2013
murder. Agamalyan’s trial was ongoing at time of
writing. Similarly, authorities and a Vanadzor
court have refused to act on complaints by Karen Kurngurtsev
that police ill-treated him after detaining him in October 2013 on murder
charges. Kurngurtsev denies the charges; his trial
was ongoing at time of writing. After an April 4
visit, a public prison monitoring group reported that two inmates at the Artik Penitentiary alleged Gyumri police had ill-treated
them in separate incidents to force confessions, including with beatings,
kicking, and threats of rape. The investigation was ongoing at time of
writing. On June 12, police
detained and beat Hayk Kyureghyan, who demonstrated
outside a Yerevan court to support Harutyunyan and
other activists on trial. After extensive media coverage of Kyureghyan’s allegations of ill-treatment, authorities
opened an investigation, which was pending at time of writing. Human Rights
Overview Human Rights Watch www.hrw.org/europecentral-asia/armenia [accessed 16 January
2013] More than three
years after street clashes between police and opposition protesters turned deadly,
meaningful accountability for the excessive use of force by law enforcement
remains remote. Armenia decriminalized
libel in May 2010, but amendments to the civil code introduced high monetary
fines for libel and led to an increase in lawsuits against newspapers,
particularly by public officials. In some cases the excessive damages awarded
by courts threaten the survival of newspapers. Authorities continue to restrict freedom of
assembly. Torture and ill-treatment in police custody persist, and the
government has failed to effectively investigate a troubling number of deaths
in custody, as well as non-combat deaths in the military. Conclusions and
recommendations of the Committee against Torture Office of the United
Nations High Commissioner of Human Rights OHCHR -- U.N. Doc. A/56/44, paras.
33-39 (2000) www1.umn.edu/humanrts/cat/observations/armenia2000.html [accessed 21
February 2013] 37. THE COMMITTEE
IS CONCERNED ABOUT THE FOLLOWING: (a) The fact that
the draft Penal Code does not include some aspects of the definition of
torture contained in article 1 of the Convention; (b) The fact that
the rights of persons deprived of liberty are not always respected; (c) The existence of
a regime of criminal responsibility for judges who commit errors in their
sentences on conviction, since it might weaken the judiciary; (d) The lack of
effective compensation for victims of acts of torture committed by government
officials in contravention of the provisions of article 14 of the Convention; (e) Poor prison
conditions and the fact that prisons come under the authority of the Ministry
of the Interior; (f) The ongoing
practice of hazing ("dedovshchina") in
the military, which has led to abuses and violations of the relevant
provisions of the Convention. This practice also has a devastating effect on
victims and may sometimes even lead to their suicide. 38. The Committee
notes with concern that the State party has not taken account in its second
periodic report of the recommendations the Committee made in connection with
the initial report of Armenia in April 1996. In particular, it has not
communicated the results of the inquiry on the allegations of ill-treatment
that were brought to the Committee's attention. AMNESTY
INTERNATIONAL From an old article -- URL not available Article was
published sometime prior to 2015 TORTURE AND OTHER
ILL-TREATMENT
- Torture and other ill-treatment remained a concern. In a report published in
February, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention stated that many of the
detainees and prisoners they interviewed had been subjected to ill-treatment
and beatings in police stations. Police and investigators used ill-treatment
to obtain confessions, and prosecutors and judges frequently refused to admit
evidence of ill-treatment during court proceedings. In August, the
European Committee for the Prevention of Torture reported that it had
received a significant number of credible allegations of ill-treatment, some
amounting to torture, by police during initial interviews. Steps were taken
during the year to establish a National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) – an
independent body to monitor places of detention – in line with Armenia’s
obligations under the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture.
A Torture Prevention Expert Council was set up within the Human Rights
Defender’s Office to act as the NPM, and the
composition and guidelines for the NPM were discussed with NGOs and experts
and approved. Recruitment for the NPM began in October. On 9 August, seven
young opposition activists detained following a clash with police alleged
that they were beaten and ill-treated while in police custody. The activists
were reportedly beaten up and detained after they tried to intervene as
police officers were searching another man. The activists circulated internet
images described as being taken by themselves on their mobile phones, showing
some of them with visible injuries on their faces and backs. All seven were
charged with hooliganism and assault on state officials, but six were later
released on bail. There had been no investigation into the allegations of
police ill-treatment by the end of the year. Search … AMNESTY
INTERNATIONAL For current
articles:: Search Amnesty
International Website www.amnesty.org/en/search/?q=armenia+torture&ref=&year=&lang=en&adv=1&sort=relevance [accessed 25 December
2018] ***
EARLIER EDITIONS OF SOME OF THE ABOVE *** Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61635.htm [accessed 16 January
2013] 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61635.htm [accessed 2 July
2019] TORTURE
AND OTHER CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT – The law
prohibits such practices, although government security forces employed them.
Witnesses continued to report numerous cases of police beating citizens
during arrest and interrogation while in detention. Most cases of police
brutality went unreported because of fear of retribution. Human rights
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) also reported claims that police beat
detainees during pretrial detention. The law allows
detainees to file complaints prior to trial to address alleged abuses
committed by authorities during criminal investigations. Detainees must
obtain permission from the police or the prosecutor's office to obtain a
forensic medical examination to substantiate a report of torture. According
to Human Rights NGOs, however, authorities rarely granted permission for
forensic medical examinations and, by years end, there were no convictions
for torture. The government
reported that 49 police officers received administrative fines and two others
faced criminal charges for their roles in 35 cases involving police
brutality. In November police
reportedly beat opposition supporters detained briefly following the marred
constitutional referendum. Freedom House
Country Report - Political Rights: 6 Civil Liberties: 4 Status: Partly Free 2009 Edition www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2009/armenia [accessed 16 January
2013] LONG URL
ç 2009 Country Reports begin on Page 21 [accessed 11 May
2020] The judicial branch
is subject to political pressure from the executive branch and suffers from
considerable corruption. Police make arbitrary arrests without warrants, beat
detainees during arrest and interrogation, and use torture to extract
confessions. Cases of abuse go unreported out of fear of retribution. All
material used herein reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107
for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT
ARTICLES. Cite this
webpage as: Patt, Prof. Martin, " Torture by Police, Forced
Disappearance & Other Ill Treatment in the early years of the 21st
Century- Armenia", http://gvnet.com/torture/Armenia.htm, [accessed
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