Letter to the Armenian Authorities Regarding Attacks Against Protesters

Dear Mr. Gasparyan and Mr. Shahinyan,

I am writing to express profound concern about the growing number of physical attacks on civil activists and peaceful demonstrators who have been engaged in several protests in Yerevan in the past three weeks. Based on information Human Rights Watch gathered from interviews with five victims, we are concerned that the attacks appear to be a concerted effort to intimidate the protestors, prevent them from exercising their rights to freedom of assembly and expression, and send a chilling message to others. Human Rights Watch urges you to take all appropriate measures to promptly, thoroughly, and effectively investigate the attacks, identify and bring the perpetrators to justice, and make clear that such violence against peaceful demonstrators will be neither tolerated nor condoned.

In the attacks that Human Rights Watch documented, unidentified men in civilian clothes set upon individual demonstrators late at night after they left the protest venues. Victims of the attacks sustained multiple bruises, including light concussions, a broken nose, and broken bones. In all five cases, police took victims’ reports and in one case police took the victim to the crime scene. Unfortunately, to the best of our knowledge, police have not taken further steps to identify and apprehend the assailants in these cases, even when one of the victims was able to identify those he suspected of being his attackers.

The five people whom Human Rights Watch interviewed had been involved in protests held in front of the city municipal building and the ruling Republican Party headquarters. They were attacked in three separate incidents. They are described below.

(2013-09-13/hrw)