Human Rights Watch (HRW) today issued the following report on the recent protests in Yerevan surrounding the armed seizure of a police building and the response of police.

It is comprehensive and highly critical of the police reaction. The detention of scores of peaceful protesters is described as “arbitrary”. The criminal charges issued against a portion of the detainees is described as “disproportionate”.

The report details Armenian law regarding detention and how these laws have been flouted. The report also notes that Armenia is a party to multiple human rights treaties, including the European Convention on Human Rights, and that despite such obligations Armenian law enforcement often violates such treaties. The report also presents cases of individuals whose rights have been grossly violated.

(Yerevan) – Armenian authorities have arbitrarily detained dozens of people linked to the ongoing, largely peaceful, protests and beaten many of them, Human Rights Watch said today. The authorities also have pressed unjustified criminal charges against numerous protest leaders and some participants and denied them basic rights of detainees.

“The Armenian authorities’ response to Yerevan’s largely peaceful protests has been excessive and cruel,” said Jane Buchanan, associate Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The tense atmosphere at some protests is no justification for detaining people arbitrarily, beating them, and bringing disproportionate criminal charges against them.”

There have been protests in Armenia’s capital, Yerevan, almost every night since July 17, 2016, after a group of armed men from a radical opposition group seized a Yerevan police station, killing one policeman and taking several hostages. Before the gunmen surrendered on July 31, public support for them and disaffection with the government grew into a wide protest movement in Yerevan.

The protests have been largely peaceful, with isolated incidents of violence by some protesters. Police in some cases responded to protests with excessive force and with large-scale arbitrary detentions. Human Rights Watch interviewed victims of arbitrary detention and police beatings, witnesses to the detentions and abuse, and lawyers for many of those detained. 

Police beat many detainees, in some cases severely, and in some cases did not allow them to get prompt medical care for their injuries. For example, on July 18, police detained a 26-year-old activist, Andranik Aslanyan, at Yerevan’s Liberty Square and severely beat him and two other men in the back of a police van.

Police kicked, punched, and beat Aslanyan on the head, face, back, and legs, spat on him, and rubbed his face on their boots to humiliate him. He was then held for three hours before being taken to a hospital even though he, and others, asked for and needed immediate medical attention.

Read full report HERE