
Human Rights Watch: A Mixed Review for Armenia in 2024
Human Rights Watch (HRW), in its recently published World Report 2025 that reviews human rights practices and trends in more than one hundred countries, notes some pluses and minuses in Armenia for the past year.
Positive
- In February 2024, Armenia became the 124th state party to the International Criminal Court’s founding treaty, the Rome Statute.
- In April 2024, parliament adopted amendments strengthening the country’s domestic violence legislation.
- In November 2024, the Armenian government dropped a bill that would have required commercial entities in Yerevan to install video surveillance cameras and provide police with 24-hour access to live feeds and recordings on demand.
Negative
- Lack of effective accountability for law enforcement abuses persisted.
- In June 2024, the Justice Ministry presented for public discussion an anti-discrimination bill that does not include sexual orientation, gender identity, health status, or marital and family status as grounds for protection.
- In May 2024, the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs disbanded the independent Monitoring Group for Institutions of Children, Older Persons, and Persons with Disabilities, which it had established by decree in 2018.
- Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people continue to face discrimination, harassment, and violence.
- Politicians and private businesses continued to bring defamation cases against journalists and media outlets, dragging them into lengthy legal battles and threatening heavy financial penalties.
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