On April 6-8, 2010 in Yerevan, Armenia will take place the International Forum of the 37th International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) Congress titled "Justice. New Challenges". The upcoming event will be attended by delegates from more than 100 countries as well as high-ranked officials of influential European organizations .

Currently, a FIDH delegation headed by its President Souhayr Belhassen is in Armenia, and has a number of meetings with Armenian officials. 

What is the main purpose of the Congress, and why Armenia was selected as a place for the Congress?

The main topic of the Congress is the new challenges of Justice and the right to an effective remedy before an independent jurisdiction. At the Congress, different approaches to realization of justice will be heard, topics related to the right to effective remedy and ways of access to regional and international courts will be discussed.  The conference will gather more than 300 key specialists, including the Prosecutor of International Criminal Court, a Judge of the European Human Rights Court, an Iranian lawyer and Nobel Prize Winner Dr. Shirin Ebadi, and other participants from different countries all over the world.   

The Forum will be held in the framework of 37^th FIDH Congress.  It is worthy to mention, for it is  the first time we organize the Congress in one of the former USSR countries.

Why Armenia was selected? Armenia is very important from the human rights perspective and has a important regional potential.  Our new member Civil Society Institute NGO is based in Armenia and works extensively in the field of human rights.  Although CSI is a relatively new member of the FIDH, but its dynamic activities bring confidence that the Congress will be a success.

In addition, Armenia is special for us, because its territory has closed borders. In August 2008, it became obvious, that even the open border with Georgia is fragile. We believe that the Congress can be useful to open the Armenian society to the world and to have a large international debate come to Yerevan.  Nowadays interesting geopolitical developments take place in Armenia, superpower states have their interests in the region... we believe that the civil society in Armenia has to raise its voice and make itself heard.

To what extent are you informed about human rights in Armenia?

My first visit to Armenia was in June last year in preparation to the Congress.  I had meetings with many representatives of the civil society, victims of human rights violations and also with the representatives of the authorities : President's Office, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ombudsman's office.  Everywhere we were talking about human rights situation in the country.  However, the most important meeting for me were the exchanges with human rights non-governmental organizations.  In cooperation with them we tried to raise the issue of fair and independent justice which still remains one of the main problems in Armenia. I believe that by our presence we assist the Armenian civil society in its sustainability, for there is a lot of work that the Armenian authorities have to do, and on this occasion we can meet and talk with the leaders of the country. We have sent the letter of invitation to the President to participate in the opening ceremony of our April Forum.  We hope that Serge Sargsyan will accept it and his participation will be a sign of a truly open conversation between the state authorities and the civil society.  Thus, we are expecting a positive response from your President.  

What are the ways of solution to the problems raised by you?

There are issues connected with implementation of justice in all countries we work with. We will stress different ways to struggle against impunity. For example, when we were here in June, we were very strongly concerned with the case of Arshaluys Hakobyan, a human rights defender who was arrested after Municipal Elections.  I raised this issue at various instances with the Armenian government, including the President and all branches of the authorities.  We have also visited him in prison.

Due to our efforts and civil society's mobilisation, his release was made possible. I understand that if this kind of work is conducted in other cases, we can have positive results. We prioritize the court which implements justice and complies with standards of fair trial. It is also vitally important for us how the concept of human rights is respected within the global antiterrorist campaign.

In Armenia and other countries, problem number one we struggle with is the impunity.  Our ultimate goal is administration of Justice, which includes all the components: lawyers, decisions, provision of equality of arms, conditions of detention and other. 

The situation after the March 1 events in relation to impediments to free assembly is preoccupying.  Efforts should be made to reach the environment ensuring freedom of expression and this will indeed improve the general human rights situation.

We again have to come back to events of March 1.  In this case we also have to deal with failure of implementation of justice. 10 people have been killed but, as everybody knows, nobody is arrested with a charge of killing them.  We will also talk about the fate of those people, who appeared in jail as a consequence of March 1 events, one of them is Nikol Pashinyan sentenced to 7 years of imprisonment.

In about two months the Forum will start, and it is in the interest of the Armenian government to bring positive changes in the judicial environment. In preparation to the Forum, we, naturally, follow the justice situation in Armenia and discuss different mechanisms, which can impact it. 

This time we will also present at the most high level our concerns regarding the cases, which have been submitted to our attention.  Some of them are not new, such as Gulyan's case, and we work on this issues for many months.  This time we also focus on the case of Sasha Davtyan, about whom  we will talk during different meetings.

The Congress will take place a few days before the 95^th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.  How the Congress will reflect on this issue?

Human rights defenders from all over the world present on our Forum will go on the Tsitsernakaberd hill. And this is logical : fight against impunity and prevention of grave crimes will be in the heart of the Forum's discussion.

Interview by Zhanna Alexanyan