Human Rights in the Army

On 22 February 2011 with the support of OSCE Office in Yerevan, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and the Partnership for Open Society Initiative held a discussion in Yerevan focused on democratic control of the armed forces and human rights protection in the military, as well as international best practices.

Representatives of the government, civil society and representatives from Germany, Ireland took part in the meeting, who discussed the situation of human rights in the armed forces.
Head of the Helsinki Citizens' Assembly Vanadzor  Artur Sakunts presented data on 42 deaths in the army in 2010, stressing that the Defense Ministry issued an official report only related to 10 of them. According to the human rights defender, the major part of the deaths was caused by violation of regulations of relations.

“We go to different communities to get some information on concrete cases taken place in the army”-said A. Sakunts and added-”it is not good that public opinion and attitude is formed based on the information provided only by the party who suffered.”

Hrayr Karapetyan, the Chairperson of the Standing Committee on Defence, National Security and Internal Affairs of the Armenian National Assembly, presented legislative initiatives in the field, focusing on the draft law on the Disciplinary Rule Book of the Armed Forces and the proposal to introduce a military Ombudsman.

Ambassador Sergey Kapinos, the Head of the OSCE Office in Yerevan underlined the key role of armed forces in ensuring the security of a country, and their vulnerability to human rights violations.

Reacting to whay has been said the director for Programs of the Open Society Foundations –Armenia David Amiryan said that there is only on issue – the human life. The other issues, explanations, concepts, calls for constructive work can be only possible measures.

According to Sakunts there are three main challenges in the Armed Forcesare three: the army should remain neutral from politics, it should be safe place for its servents and should not be a corruption or income source for officials.  Speaking about civil control over armed forces A. Sakunts stated that armed forces are a closed institution, there are a lot of secrets and society is not informed about any process going on, which is against democratic standards. 

Civil society organizations' representatives and defenders involved in concrete cases brought facts of human rights violations in the army, underlined the absence of relevant official investigation and stressed the fact that in most cases the Ministry of Defnec does not provide any information or does not report a death case in the army.

Head of the Armenian Center for National and International studies Richard Kirakosyan said that it is necessary to be intolerant towards violence, murders and suicides in the army.