© 2021. PHOTO BY PEACE DIALOGUE NGO. AUTHOR: VANANE NANAYAN
On 23-24 October 2021, Peace Dialogue NGO, in cooperation with the Ministries of Justice and Defense of the Republic of Armenia, convened a public discussion in Tsaghkadzor on implementation of Defense Sector-Related Actions in the Scope of 2020-2022 Action Plan Deriving from Armenia’s National Strategy for Human Rights Protection: Issues and Solutions.
Since 2020, with the assistance provided by German Federal Foreign Office and Open Society Foundations-Armenia, Peace Dialogue has been implementing the project Promotion of civil society’s role in the development and implementation of state policy in the field of human rights protection in the Armed Forces. In the scope of the project, a Monitoring Group was established consisting of representatives of civil society organizations operating in Yerevan and regions of Armenia. The Monitoring Group have implemented monitoring of the defense sector-related actions in the framework of the Action Plan 2020-2022; specifically, the actions included in the sections of right to life, prevention of torture and ill-treatment, right to a fair trial and prevention of discrimination.
Being one of the civil society member organizations of the Council implementing coordination and monitoring of the Action Plan 2020-2022, Peace Dialogue initiated this meeting striving for bringing together representatives of the official bodies responsible for the field, Parliament, civil society organizations and international organizations to make joint efforts for mapping the defense sector-related issues in the implementation of the Action Plan 2020-2022 deriving from the National Strategy for the Protection of Human Rights and finding solutions to those issues.
During the event, Kristine Grigoryan, the first Deputy Minister of Justice made an opening speech by emphasizing the significance of cooperation with civil society partners in the framework of the implementation of the Action Plan 2020-2022, especially pointing out the valuable partnership with Peace Dialogue NGO within the scope of the Action Plan 2020-2022 Coordination and Monitoring Council. The Deputy Minister expressed the Ministry’s determination to continue the cooperation hoping that it will contribute to the improvement of human rights situation in Armenia.
In his welcoming speech to the participants of the event, Gevorg Martirosyan, the head of the Human Rights and Integrity Building Center of the Ministry of Defense spoke about the long-term cooperation with the Peace Dialogue NGO on human rights issues in the Armed Forces. Along with the representatives from the Ministry of Defense and General Staff, Mr. Martirosyan presented the measures taken by the Ministry in the scope of the Action Plan 2020-2022 by addressing various issues emerged due to COVID-19 pandemic and 44-day war.
In her speech, Tatev Khachatryan, the representative of the project’s donor Open Society Foundations-Armenia, spoke about the importance of fostering dialogue and atmosphere of cooperation in the field of human rights among partners from civil society organizations, Government and Parliament. Ms. Khachatryan expressed her gratitude to Peace Dialogue NGO for making consistent efforts to create a platform for such a dialogue.
Project expert Armen Grigoryan, as well as representatives of partner organizations actively operating in the field of human rights protection, David Gyurjyan from Law Development and Protection Foundation, and Araks Melkonyan from Protection of Rights Without Borders moderated thematic panel discussions and following discussions during the event aimed at developing recommendations on addressing the identified issues in the field.
Edgar Khachatryan, president of Peace Dialogue NGO and expert Ani Harutyunyan introduced the monitoring results of the implementation of the defense sector-related actions in the scope of the Action Plan 2020-2022 within the framework of the project Promotion of civil society’s role in the development and implementation of state policy in the field of human rights protection in the Armed Forces. They particularly addressed to the issues related to the absence of criteria and baseline data for measuring the effectiveness of the defense sector-related actions included in the Action Plan 2020-2022 by emphasizing the necessity to publish general statistics on deaths in the army in non-combat conditions as well as on cases of crimes connected to ill-treatment and torture against servicemen.
It is also worth mentioning that representatives from the bodies responsible for the implementation of defense-sector related actions in the scope of the Action Plan 2020-2022 – RA Ministry of Justice, RA Academy of Justice, Human Rights Defender’s Office, RA Prosecutor General’s Office, RA Investigative Committee and RA Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs took an active part in the public discussion. They also presented the measures taken by their institutions within the Action Plan and the obstacles they faced during the implementation of the actions. Representatives from the RA Parliament, local and international organizations were also present in the discussion.
See more photos at Peace Dialogue’e Facebook page.
The Public Discussion on Implementation of Defense Sector-Related Actions in the Scope of 2020-2022 Action Plan Deriving from Armenia’s National Strategy for Human Rights Protection: issues and solutions was implemented within the framework of the grant provided by Open Society Foundations-Armenia.
