Helsinki Association NGO is barred from visiting and monitoring penitentiaries of the RA Ministry of Justice which substantiated the decision by the fact that "the summary of results of the monitoring conducted by the NGO in 2010 had sparked objective discontent among convicts and detained, penitentiary administration and different layers of the society".

On Thursday, Mikael Danielyan, chairman of Helsinki Association declared that the administration of detention facilities of the RA Ministry of Justice does not permit his organization to conduct observations at detention facilities. Within the framework of “Monitoring of Human Rights State in Armenia” project Helsinki Association released its report in February of 2011.

Since 2011 Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Vanadzor Office has been implementing “Reforms in RA Police System” project. 

On February 16, 2011,  a business meeting was held in Yerevan with Armenian monitors who conducted human rights monitoring in police-citizen relations within the framework of the project on "Training and Networking for Young Human Rights Activists".

On October 12, 2010 Helsinki Citizens' Assembly-Vanadzor held a one-day working meeting in Tbilisi on police-citizen relations in the framework of the project “Training and Networking for Young Human Rights Activists” with the young activists conducting monitoring in Georgia.
And on  October 13, 2010 a one-day working meeting was held in the framework of the same project in Yerevan with the activists conducting monitoring in Armenia.

On August 1-7, 2010 HCA Vanadzor organized a seven-day training on “Human rights monitoring in police-citizen relations” in the framework of the project “Training and networking for young human rights activists.”

“Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor” is implementing a project called “Training and networking for young human rights activists” from March 1, 2010. The project is funded by The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) private, nonprofit foundation only for the period March-August, 2010.

On May 26-30, HCA Vanadzor organized a 5-day training on “Human Rights in Psychiatric Hospitals.”

HCA Vanadzor is planning to monitor the situation of human rights in Vanadzor detention facility. In order to conduct effective monitoring HCA Vanadzor organized seminar for 6 employees of the organization on “Human Rights Monitoring in penal system” in Vanadzor on 26-28 July 2008.

On July 19th, a 7-day course of Human Rights Monitoring will start in the rest-home “Lori.” This is the 5th training within the framework of the project “Human rights capacity building program
for HCA Vanadzor” implemented by HCA Vanadzor. The participants are 16 volunteers of HCA Vanadzor from the towns of Vanadzor, Spitak, Stepanavan, Tashir and Alaverdi.
The trainers will be Agnieszka Klosowska and Zenon Kolodziej from Polish Helsinki Foundation for Human Right.

On March 24th a seminar on “TV and Printed Press Monitoring of Pre-Election Campaign” took place in Vanadzor.
The newly selected sixteen volunteers of HCA Vanadzor participated in the seminar.
Levon Barseghyan, the president of “Asparez” journalists’ club of Gyumri, taught the volunteers the methods and mechanisms of TV and printed press monitoring.

On March 18th, a training of monitoring of pre-election campaign took place in Vanadzor. The participants were 16 newly selected volunteers of HCA Vanadzor. After the seminar the participants will carry out monitoring of pre-election campaign in Spitak, Tashir, Stepanavan, Alaverdi and Vanadzor towns of Lori region.

Prisoners are kept in the Vanadzor Criminal penitentiary institution in inhuman conditions. There is no normal heating, and food is barely enough not to starve.
During the last six months the representatives of non-governmental observers mission have visited Criminal penitentiary institutions and prisons in the northern part of the country in order to investigate the conditions there.