Although the international community continued in 2005 to look favorably on
Armenia for its economic performance, the government has failed to improve its
human rights record. The crackdown on opposition parties and supporters in 2004
led to fewer public demonstrations in 2005, and, consequently, less overt
government pressure on the opposition. However, the authorities continued to use
their powers to limit political activity.

In July 2005, after years of failing to meet Council of Europe obligations to
amend the constitution to introduce a system of stronger checks and balances
among the different branches of government, Armenian authorities secured the
approval of Council of Europe legal experts on a raft of constitutional
amendments. The opposition (and media freedom activists) were critical, saying
that too much power would remain with the executive, and some opposition parties
decided to campaign against the amendments, which were to go to a referendum in
November. The government made little progress on measures against corruption, a
widespread problem in the country, and forced land aquisition by
government-backed urban developers resulted in allegations of abuses against
homeowners.

Law enforcement authorities restrict freedom of assembly and use torture and
other violent and intimidating practices when carrying out their work. The
authorities have a history of putting pressure on human rights defenders who are
critical of the government. In 2005, such pressure extended to the
ombudsperson’s office.

Freedom of Assembly

The authorities restrict the right to freedom of assembly, particularly in the
case of opposition rallies and demonstrations. May 2005 amendments to the 2004
law on public gatherings resulted in few improvements. On repeated occassions in
2005, nongovernmental organizations and political parties attempted to hold
public gatherings at which police or unidentified people interfered, grabbing
banners and placards, or triggering disturbances. One such incident occurred on
April 20, when the head of the New Times political party, Aram Karapetian, held
a public meeting with residents in the town of Sevan. Unidentified people began
fighting with rally participants, and one shot and injured in the leg a
university student who was participating in the rally. A police investigation
concluded that the rally participants had themselves incited the disturbances,
and no one was charged in relation to the shooting. In another incident in May,
police reportedly threatened to detain people who wanted to attend a rally of
the opposition People’s Party of Armenia in a village near Yerevan.

State Violence and Intimidation

Torture and ill-treatment in police custody remain widespread in Armenia.
Torture usually occurs in pre-trial detention with the aim of coercing a
confession or evidence against third parties. Abuse and mistreatment within the
army is also widespread, with dozens of suspicious deaths occuring every year.

In May 2005, police allegedly beat supporters of an independent candidate, Artur
Shaboyan, in local elections in the town of Hrazdan. According to media reports,
police used batons and electric-shock equipment to attack Shaboyan supporters
outside several polling stations.


In June, law enforcement authorities arrested Yektan Turkyilmaz, a Turkish
scholar who had been carrying out historical research using Armenian archives,
for failing to obtain official permission to take old books out of the country.
After his arrest, security officers questioned him and his associates about his
research and political views. They denied him access to a lawyer for two days
and then provided him with a state-appointed lawyer, not of his choice. In
August, after significant international pressure, he was released on a two-year
suspended prison sentence.



Media

AAlthough Armenia has significant independent and opposition print media, the
government continued to restrict full media freedom in the country. Television
channels A1+, Noyan Tapan, and Russian NTV, which had aired independent news
coverage about Armenia, remained unable to broadcast because the government had
taken away their broadcasting frequencies. The proposed constitutional
amendments would increase the independence of the National Commission on
Television and Radio, the body that issues and revokes broadcasting licenses, by
giving parliament the power to appoint half of the members and the president the
power to appoint the other half (currently, the president appoints all the
members of the commission). Nevertheless, media associations, nongovernmental
organizations, and the ombudsperson have criticized the Council of Europe for
endorsing the proposed constitutional amendments, which they argue fails to
guarantee the independence of the electronic media. They further criticize the
authorities’ failure to institute changes to increase the independenceof the
commission overseeing state-run Armenian Public Television and Radio, set up in
2005 to provide independent public television, one of Armenia’s obligations to
the Council of Europe.

Freedom of Religion

Despite amendments to the law on alternative service introduced in November
2004, Jehovah’s Witnesses continue to be persecuted for their refusal to perform
military service. According to the Armenian Helsinki Association, in September
2005 sixteen Jehovah’s Witnesses were serving prison terms, and nineteen were
awaiting trial, for refusing to perform military service.

On June 9, 2005, according to Forum 18 News Service, a court in Stepanakert, in
the unrecognized republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, sentenced Armen Grigorian, an
Armenian conscientious objector, to two years in prison for refusing to perform
military service. A year earlier, the Armenian military had forcibly taken
Grigorian, an eighteen-year-old from a Jehovah’s Witness family, from Yerevan to
a military unit in Nagorno-Karabakh. His request for alternative civilian
service was rejected. When he refused to sing the national anthem and swear the
military oath, army officials beat him and later forced him to stand in his
underwear in front of about 1,800 soldiers and explain why he refused to perform
military service.

Human Rights Defenders

In May 2005, the government successfully applied to the Constitutional Court to
curtail the powers of the ombudsperson to access court documents, arguing that
the powers breached the principle of the independence of the courts. The
decision came after the ombudsperson released her first annual report, which
criticized the government for its human rights record. Later in May, security
services reportedly confiscated a computer from the office of the ombudsperson
that had confidential information about people who had made complaints to the
office; ostensibly the computer was seized as evidence against an employee of
the office previously arrested and accused of taking a bribe. Larisa Alaverdian,
the ombudsperson, claimed that the security services did not have a warrant to
take the computer, and that they used information it contained to harass a law
firm that had helped two individuals to file complaints to her office.

Key International Actors

Although the Council of Europe continued to engage Armenia to make progress in
complying with its membership obligations, local groups criticized the
organization for weak monitoring of those obligations and for approving the
government-proposed amendments to the constitution. Many of Armenia’s
obligations to the Council of Europe remain unfulfilled, including resolving the
problem of the use of administrative arrests for political purposes, providing
plurality in the electronic media, and resolving the issue of alternative
service.

In April 2005, the European Union decided to proceed with the European
Neighbourhood Policy joint preparations for action plans with the countries of
the South Caucasus, including Armenia. This is the first time that the E.U. has
offered closer economic, political, and cultural relations in exchange for
progress on concrete human rights benchmarks, and therefore marks a significant
opportunity for the E.U. to encourage human rights improvements in Armenia. The
potential of this opportunity to trigger meaningful reforms will depend,
however, on how specific the human rights benchmarks are in the final action
plan document, which was being negotiated between the Armenian government and
the E.U. throughout the latter half of 2005.

The United States and Russia continued to compete for influence in Armenia. The
United States protested over the lack of transparency in the sale of Armenia’s
electricity grid to a Russian company, which increased Russia’s hold over
Armenia’s energy sector. Russia’s withdrawal from its bases in Georgia resulted
in Russia relocating part of its military hardware to Armenia. Increasing ties
with the United States led to Armenia sending forty-six troops to join coalition
forces in Iraq in January 2005. In March, Armenia and the United States signed
an action plan regarding Armenia’s participation in the Millennium Challenge
Account, a multi-million-dollar U.S. aid program. The action plan focuses on
development of fiscal policy, banking, corruption, and agriculture.