The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has been examining a case concerning violence against Armenian human rights defender

The case of Marina Poghosyan, President of “Veles” human rights protection organization is at the stage of communication: addressing questions to the RA Government.

It should be mentioned, that during the eviction of the family living in Abovyan street, Yerevan on March 17 of 2014, the workers of the RA Compulsory Enforcement Service of Judicial Acts, used violence against the oldest family member, 77 years old Zina Gyoazalyan.

Human rights defender Marina Poghosyan, who arrived there trying to prevent violence, was subjected to violence and humiliation herself.

Particularly, the officers of Compulsory Enforcement Service locked the human rights defender in one of the rooms of the home. After a while, they opened the room, took her by the hand and threw her on the concrete stairs. Poghosyan got also physical injury, which is confirmed by the medical document.

Afterwards, the criminal case instituted regarding the violence used against Poghosyan was discontinued and the complaint filed to the RA courts had no outcomes: the courts rejected the complaint of Poghosyan, after which she immediately filed a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights.

The complaint-application was filed to the Court by Haykuhi Harutyunyan, who, during the interview to the “First News” channel mentioned, that this is the first case, when the Court examines a case submitted from Armenia in regard to the violence against a human rights defender.

“In procedural terms, the Court prioritizes the examination of lawyers, advocates and human rights defenders’ cases. Due to it, two years later after its submission, the case has been communicated” – states Haykuhi Harutyunyan.

It should be mentioned, that the examination of the complaints usually takes a longer due to the heavy workload of the Court, but in this case questions have already been addressed to the RA Government with the deadline to respond until May 22 of 2018. According to the advocate, the ECHR will make a decision on the case of Poghosyan next half of the year.

The Court particularly inquired the RA Government to clarify whether Marina Poghosyan had been subjected to inhumane degrading treatment and whether the examination of the violence against her was effective.

Haykuhi Harutyunyan assures, that the European Court of Human Rights will satisfy the complaint of Poghosyan. “I am sure, that there was a violation of Marina Poghosyan rights that is why we applied to European Court of Human Rights. If the Court finds that there was a violation of Article 3 of the Convention it will prove that the Court highlights the necessity to demonstrate more restraint conduct by a state body’s representative towards the activities of human rights defenders” – states the advocate.

During an interview to “First News” channel, human rights defender Marina Poghosyan mentioned, that she doesn’t find herself happy about the fact that the violation of RA citizen and human rights defender will be recorded not by the RA courts but by an international court. “I feel really very sorry that we cannot reach justice in our country, that our courts are not yet independent and do not take the risk to make decisions in a line with the law and we are obliged to record the violation of our rights at international level courts”.

It should be noted, that Marina Poghosyan was subjected to violence, when the family of Ida Melikyan was being thrown from their last shelter. As stated by the latter, she was the victim of forgery of former Head of Civil Aviation Hovhannes Eritsyan. Up till now, the interests of Ida Melikyan are presented in the RA courts by “Veles”.

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