“I am not there physically, but in this way I can express my solidarity with all those participating in the protest,” Petrosyan conveyed.
Stepan Grigoryan, serving a life sentence in Armenia’s Nubarashen Detention Facility and now in his sixth day of a hunger strike, has petitioned the courts to overturn a decision by the prison authorities to postpone, by one year, a review of his conditional release.
Garnik Arakelyan, a 60 year-old veteran of the Artsakh War, has been serving a prison sentence ever since being found guilty of premeditated murder in 2010.
After spending 16 months in prison on charges stemming from the November 2013 Shant Harutyunyan case, Sevak Mnatsakanyan was released today and is back home with family.
Today, at the Court of Appeals, two complaints filed by prosecutor Artur Sargsyan and the defendants' lawyer were heard in the case of Vardan Petrosyan.
Residents of Nork Street 7 called Hetq today complaining that a larg swath of trees have been cut down to make way for a high-rise residential building.
The seven hour search of the Yerevan central office of the Founding Parliament (FP) organization by Armenian law enforcement wrapped up minutes ago.
While Vardan Petrosyan, the performance artist sentenced on January 29 to five years for his complicity in a deadly October 2013 car accident that killed two teenagers will not be appealing the verdict, the family of the victims will
In the first installment of this article comparing the cases of murders committed by Russian soldiers, the first in 1999 and the second in January of 2015, I have concluded, after researching case materials at the Shirak Provincial Court that in the 1999 incident Armenian and Russian law enforcement bodies worked collaboratively, but that the Armenian side took the lead.
Hetq searched the court archives to compare the case materials regarding the January 12, 2015 murder of seven members of the Gyumri Avetisyan family, in which a Russian soldier has been charged, and the Gyumri murders committed by two Russian soldiers in 1999.
Human rights organizations and defenders, both locally in Armenia and internationally, have been critical of the reports the CPT has been sending to the Armenian government.
Gayaneh Hovhanyan doesn’t believe that her father, whose body was found hanging from a tree one day after he left his house in the Armenian ton of Ararat, committed suicide as cited as the official cause of death.
While the Investigative Committee (IC) has ordered a number of forensic and ballistic tests regarding the case, Hetq has learned that no psychological or psychiatric exams have been ordered as yet.
After his defense lawyers made counter arguments, the ongoing trial of performance actor Vardan Petrosyan was postponed today until January 26.
Prosecutor Demands Six and a Half Year Sentence for Vardan Petrosyan
Geghamyan’s physician Levon Badalyan now reports that after five rounds of therapy a portion of the metastases in the young man’s lungs have disappeared and that the others have shrunk considerably.
Davit Vardanyan, the son of Armenia’s ambassador to Georgia, who was found guilty this last September of trafficking and procuring hashish, has been granted conditional early release from prison.
Lousineh Arakelyan faces a 7-12 year prison stretch if found guilty of ‘trafficking’ her three year-old son Eric.
Twelve Armenian civil servants and a former head of the State Social Security Service were handed lengthy prison sentences by a Yerevan court today after being found guilty of embezzling more than 260 million AMD (US$575,000) in pensions over a four year period.
The appeal of Soghomon Kocharyan, now serving his 20th year in prison for the murder of an Iranian citizen, to have his case reopened will be reviewed by a Yerevan court on December 5.
On November 26 the documentary film “Listen to Our Voices” produced by Hetq will be screened at the Naregatsi Art Institute in Yerevan at 1:00 pm.
Our approach had been to retrain workers in the system and then appoint them as psychologist in the correctional facilities. But experience has shown that there are some jobs for which retraining doesn’t produce desirable results.
Due to the revelations of the Distorted Fates series, there has been some progress registered in two cases and government agencies have responded to our findings.
Haroutyunyan points to Article 17 of the amendments bill that would modify Article 23 of the existing law, stating that, “Maternity allowances will not be granted to convicts serving time in correctional facilities.”
The four inmates, who share a cell with Iskandaryan, have written to department of corrections head Artour Osikyan saying that the inmate, who lost a leg while serving in the army, gets bouts of unconsciousness and recently fell causing injury to his face and hands.
The lawyer of Soghomon Kocharyan, now serving his 20th year in prison for the murder of an Iranian citizen, has told Hetq that his drive to have his client’s case reopened is making progress through the legal system in Armenia.
This is the story of Mayis Geghamyan, a 19 year-old whose life was irrevocably changed on July 15, 2013 while serving as a conscript soldier in Artsakh.
Armenia’s Prosecutor General has again refused to reopen the case of Soghomon Kocharyan, now serving his 20th year in prison for the murder of an Iranian citizen.
Artour’s parents say their son is innocent of the charges and that he was framed.
Revazyan has asked the prosecutor general to launch a criminal case into the matter.
The Mouradyan family of Talin believes their son Arman was killed while serving in the Artsakh Defense Army and did not commit suicide as officially claimed. Here’s their version of events.
This is the continuation of the story involving the murder of 26 year-old taxi driver Galust Melkonyan who left his house in the Erebouni neighborhood of Yerevan on November 17, 2011 and never returned.
On November 17, 2011, 26 year-old taxi driver Galust Melkonyan (photo) left his house in the Erebouni neighborhood of Yerevan and never returned…alive that is.
The RA Ministry of Justice pursues the problems of prisoners sentenced to life — they are at the examination and mapping stage.
29 prisoners serving life sentences at the Nubarashen Correctional Facility went on hunger strike today according to the Human Rights Defender’s Office in Armenia.
"This is a political issue; it's not a matter of law — what are attorneys going to do? There is no justice in Armenia.
In 2013, more than 900 individuals serving in the Armenian military were charged and sentenced on various crimes – the top three relating to theft, drug trafficking and crimes committed against the service.
Through the Ombudsman, we also received information about 102 people serving life in prison in Armenia.
"For such a decision Armenia will be condemned by the European Court of Human Rights: whether it be 5–6 years later, but Armenia will definitely have a 'Vardan Petrosyan vs. the Republic of Armenia' winning case. I say this so confidently because last year France was sentenced because of a similar decision. The court again had not sufficiently justified why an individual must remain behind bars. But compared to the French decision, yesterday's...
Here, justice is viewed as a performance. In France, they respect justice — here [in Armenia], they pollute it. This is my impression.
In the juvenile justice system, Armenia has one systemic problem, which includes several sub- problems. The systemic problem is that we don't have a juvenile justice system that would correspond to the best international practice and international legislative acts, which our state has signed.
Several activists in Mashtots Park were detained earlier today by police. One of them, Ani Khachatryan, speaking with Hetq from the Kentron police division, said they were simply standing as a group, doing nothing in the park when police picked them up.
Courts in Armenia have extended the pre-trial detention of 13 citizens arrested last November in the Shant Harutyunyan case from one to two months.
Albert is the sole provider in the household — and he has not been working for the past 6 months. The family is now barely surviving.
Vardan Petrosyan, the prominent Armenian performance artist being held in pre-trial detention for his involvement in a deadly car accident last year, will be transferred from the Convicts’ Hospital to the medical wing of the Nubarashen Correctional Facility.
No one in the family of 42 year-old Hayk Petrosyan, an Artsakh War vet, has a job.
“Yes, I spoke by phone, but that happened before the accident,” Vardan Petrosyan told the court.
Experts with years of experience working with convicts point to a range of causes for self- inflicted harm and mutilation; from the serious to the simple.
When Hetq visited the hospital there were 200 patients and most didn't want to be photographed.