To discuss these
issues, today we have with us:
|
Ruben Melikyan, who was formerly Artsakh’s Human Rights
Ombudsman, and prior to that he was rector of the Justice Academy of Armenia.
In 2019, Melikyan co-founded and currently leads the “Path of Law” NGO. Իրավական ուղի in Armenian. |
|
Discussion
Decisions of the International Court of Justice
Early in December
2021 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued urgent decisions in the case that was brought to it by Armenia.
The decisions ordered both Armenia and Azerbaijan to "...take all
necessary measures to prevent the incitement and promotion of racial
hatred" against each other’s nationals. Additionally, the decision said
that Azerbaijan must protect from violence and harm "all persons captured
in relation to the 2020 conflict who remain in detention" and must
"prevent and punish acts of vandalism and desecration affecting Armenian
cultural heritage".
● What Armenia’s suit was about, and what do the
decisions mean for us?
● Will these decisions help protect our people and
our heritage from gross violations?
Armenia claims
that Azerbaijan violated the International Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Racial Discrimination (aka CERD), because destruction of national
heritage is a form of racial discrimination. Did the ICJ’s decisions take this
point into account?
● Where can Armenia go from here? How will it
defend Artsakh’s Armenian population and heritage?
What are your thoughts about ECHR’s ruling that Armenia violated Pashinyan freedom of “freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, and to liberty and security” stemming from the March 1 case.
Turkish-Armenian “Normalization”
On January 14
Turkish and Armenian special representatives met in Moscow for the first
Turkish-Armenian Normalization discussions. Parliament vice-speaker Ruben Rubinyan met with Turkish diplomat Serdar Kılıç, then all sides made positive comments and said they
wanted to continue towards comprehensive relations, and world powers put out
statements commending the discussions.
● What are your thoughts about this process?
● What are the pitfalls and opportunities
presented to Armenia in this process?
More Constitutional Changes
In April 2021,
Pashinyan, in one of his speeches disclosed that he wants to change the
constitution to a presidential system. He made that part of his party’s
platform in the June 2021 elections. Now, it seems that the parliament has
launched that process by creating
a committee to develop recommendations for changes to the constitution.
● What are the goals of the current initiative to
change the Armenian Constitution? How earnest is the Civil Contract’s official
reason for initiating these changes: that is to transition to a
semi-presidential system?
● What is the “semi-presidential” system of
government that is being talked about?
● How was the constitutional amendment council
selected?
Could there be
alternative motives for changing the constitution, like “pre-conditions” from
Azerbaijan and Turkey?
Just a few days
ago we talked with political analyst Suren Sargsyan who has discovered archival
documents that suggest that since the early 1990’s, Turkey has demanded that
Armenia drop the Armenian cause, recognize Turkey’s borders and remove all
language or claims to Western Armenia. To support this, they want Armenia to
change its Declaration of Independence and its Constitution to drop all
references to the Armenian Cause.
● Are you concerned that fulfilling long standing
Turkish demands might be part of the goal of this initiative?
● Can the Parliamentary opposition stop harmful,
or short-sighted amendments?
Civil Contract Appoints new HR
Ombudsman for Armenia
Since 2016 Dr.
Arman Tatoyan has been Armenia’s Ombudsman, its Human Rights Defender. His term in office
expires this month, in February.
Tatoyan is highly
popular in both Armenia and the Diaspora, yet there has been friction with the
Pashinyan administration. Last week the Civil Contract party proposed and voted in first deputy justice minister Kristine Grigoryan as the incoming ombudsman.
Ruben, you are a former Ombudsman of Artsakh, so you are definitely an expert
voice on this role!
● How do you assess Dr. Tatoyan’s
tenure as Armenia’s human rights defender, and also his office’s relationship
with the current government?
● Would you speculate where his career is headed
to?
● What can you tell us about Ms. Kristine
Grigoryan?
● What are your expectations of her tenure as the
new ombudsman?
Continuing Harassment of Opposition Leaders
Since the 44-day
war ended in November 2020, the domestic politics of Armenia have been very
unstable. Throughout 2021, opposition figures were harassed, jailed, and
threatened with unending lawsuits. And we’ve seen some shady behind-the-scenes
deals with government-associated entities that seem to be intended to strike at
the opposition leaders’ financial resources. For example: the non-transparent
deal for the Zangezur Copper Molybdenum Combine.
While these
degradations in the norms of democracy in Armenia were noted
by international NGOs like Freedom House and Human Rights Watch, as a whole
they don’t seem to have put a major dent in Armenia’s reputation with the West.
Just last week, the PACE voted for a resolution praising Armenia for making “marked progress in
democratic development since 2018”. This was particularly scandalous because it
ignored the opposition’s vocal complaints about the issue of the harassment and
jailing of pro-opposition figures; and it ignored the European Ombudsman
Institute’s (EOI) statement slamming Armenian Public TV, and the Armenian government, for “...pursuing a long-term policy of
blocking the broadcasting of the Human Rights Defender.”
● Can you summarize the state of affairs in
Armenia in this space?
The most recent of the opposition issues we just
described, started a week
ago when Pashinyan’s government initiated legal action to arrest a judge in Syunik, Boris Bakhshyan, after he let a jailed oppositionist, Ashot
Minasyan, or Ashot Yerkat as he’s known colloquially, out on bail. Armenia’s
prosecutor general Artur Davtyan would not say what
the charges are against Bakhshyan, because of some
need for “secrecy”. Bakhshyan has claimed that the legal action against him is harassment
and retribution for allowing an oppositionist out of jail.
● Is the government behaving appropriately? Is it
overstepping its boundaries?
● Do you think Armenia is being given an easy
grade by the international, mainly pro-western institutions?
● Is democracy threatened?
Legislating away Civil Liberties
One of the most
worrisome developments for us is the rapid introduction of new freedom-limiting
legislation (Article 137.1), that appears to be enforced by the regime
selectively.
For instance,
recently, through your Facebook post I learned that a criminal case was opened
against an individual who shared content from ArmComedy (which is a satirical
show) on their own Facebook profile, for severely insulting the Prime Minister.
The law criminalizing such behavior was introduced last year.
● Can you talk more about this case and the
phenomenon in general?
Wrap-up
That
concludes this Conversations On Groong episode,
and we hope you found it helpful. As always, we invite your feedback, you
can find us on most social media and podcast platforms, or our website Groong.org.
Thanks
to Laura Osborn for the music on our podcasts. Don’t forget to subscribe to our
channel on YouTube, Like
our pages and follow us on social media. On behalf of everyone in this episode,
we wish you a good week, thanks for listening and we’ll talk to you soon.
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Keywords
Ruben Melikyan, Arman Tatoyan, Armenia, ICJ, International Court of Justice, ECHR, The Hague, Ombudsman, Human Rights, Democracy, Constitutional Council, Constitutional Amendments, Nikol Pashinyan, Kristine Grigoryan, Ashot Minasyan, Ashot Yerkat, Syunik, Zangezur, Molybdenum, Political Opposition, Armen Sarkisian, Vahagn Khachatryan, Turkey, Turkish Armenian Normalization, Normalization, Armenian Public TV, EOI, European Ombudsman Institute, Article 137.1,