The Armenian police on Wednesday unveiled plans to ask prominent public figures
to join a new supervisory body that will be charged with making police
activities more transparent and preventing human rights abuses by
law-enforcement officers.

Major-General Alik Sargsian, the chief of the national police service, said that
“in a matter of days” he will set up a “public council” comprising well-known
artists, scientists, intellectuals and representatives of civic groups.

“They will have the right to carry out the oversight of our work at any moment
and inform mass media about that in a timely manner,” Sargsian told a news
conference. He said the council’s mission will be to make the police “even more
transparent to the society.”

He did not specify if human rights activists, opposition figures and other
government critics will also be invited to sit on the body.

Local and international watchdogs have long regarded mistreatment of criminal
suspects in police custody as the most frequent form of human rights violation
in Armenia. They say police brutality remains commonplace despite the
government’s stated efforts to tackle the problem.

The Armenian police’s human rights record came under fresh scrutiny with the
launch of an unprecedented government crackdown on the opposition following last
February’s disputed presidential election. The crackdown was accompanied by mass
arrests of opposition members. Some of claimed to have been tortured in custody,
a charge denied by law-enforcement bodies.

Sargsian on Wednesday pledged to launch an “internal inquiry” into a recently
circulated opposition video that shows police officers relentlessly beating
opposition supporters on March 1 hundreds of meters away from the scenes of
opposition demonstrations in Yerevan. “But do not expect me put any policeman on
trial for a mere scuffle,” he told journalists.

Sargsian said the police are also examining another footage that shows a police
vehicle run over a protester later on March 1.

By Karine Kalantarian