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The wide-scale assaults of 2020 and the illegal presence of the Azerbaijani armed forces in the vicinity of the villages of Armenia changed the peculiarities and the directions of the Human Rights Defender’s activities. The Human Rights Defender (HRD) Kristinne Grigoryan the annual report of the activities of the RA HRD’s activities for 2021.

The report was discussed at April 19 extraordinary sitting of the NA Standing Committee on Protection of Human Rights and Public Affairs. The concrete problems are presented in the voluminous document comprised of almost 2000 pages, and versions of its solution are proposed.

“In the reporting year radical work was done in the post-war phase as a consequence of the offences carried out by the Azerbaijani armed forces and the violations of human rights if human rights in the RA border settlements. Regular visits headed by the HRD for that purpose were carried out border settlements, studied in detail on spot the residents’ life support conditions and the issues related to ensuring separate rights. As a result of visits, brief information on the violations of the recorded human rights was revised to the competent state bodies, was presented to the international organizations,” the Ombudsman of Armenia noted.

According to Kristinne Grigoryan, the legislative guarantees, which ensure necessary level of institutional independence are also the pledge of the efficiency of the HRD’s work. However, according to her, cases were practically recorded, which contained real dangers of the institutional obstacles of the HRD’s activities. One of them related the elimination of the financial independence guarantee of the institution.

“Another defective phenomena impeding the HRD’s activities was the spreading of hatred and insult of high degree of organization, as well as evident false or wrong information mainly from the false pages or accounts addressed to the HRD related to the implementation of her activities,” she underlined.

In 2021, 11 applications addressed to the RA Constitutional Court from the HRD Office. The issue of the compliance of a number of provisions to the Constitution were raised in the applications.

According to the results of the social survey published on 31 January 2022 by the U.S. International Republican Institute, 68% of the citizens who had taken part in the survey were pleased with the RA HRD’s activities, 35% - very pleased, 33% - pleased to some extent. The survey was carried out among 1512 citizens and included the period from November 22 to December 5 2021.

The International Republican Institute also conducted a survey of opinion of people of Armenia on which institutions are considered the most reliable in terms of receiving information on foreign policy. The citizens trusted the Human Rights Defender the most (out of a maximum 30% to 25%) in this issue too.

According to the rapporteur, a general study of complaints addressed to the Human Rights Defender states that issues related to the execution of the right to a pension with privileged conditions and on state orders continue to remain.

The hate speech and threats voiced by all political forces taking part in the elections in political fight during the pre-election campaign are also presented in the report.

In the field of freedom information, the monitoring of 2021 f the HRD Staff witnesses that the insults and the hate speech, the mutual accusations in different issues continue on the social media in the conditions of almost full absence of healthy or professional discussions. Those words reached to a very dangerous amount, especially taking into consideration the crisis situations, the emotional tension followed the war.

Let us note that Kristinne Grigoryan assumed the position Human Rights Defender on 25 February 2022, and the presented report greatly refers to the activities of the pf the previous HRD, Arman Tatoyan. The report was published during the tenure of the previous HRD.

The Chair of the NA Standing Committee on Protection of Human Rights and Public Affairs Taguhi Tovmasyan was interested if there was clash of interests while presenting the report, taking into account the fact that Kristinne Grigoryan held political position before. Answering the question Kristinne Grigoryan has noted that she is an official and she is guided by the Constitution and law, and there cannot be a word for clash of interests.

The report was accepted as an information.