Armenia Signs U.N. Convention to Protect Disabled People's Rights

Yet another small step in the right direction for Armenia.

Armenia has become the 81st nation to sign this Convention and the third former Soviet nation, after Moldova and Lithuania, to do so.

The purpose of this Convention is to promote, protect and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by all persons with disabilities, and to promote respect for their inherent dignity.

Signing it is one thing, but completely changing the perspectives of a few million people is something else entirely.

Source: ArmenPress

Nobel Laureates Agree: Armenia & Turkey Should Cooperate!

Too bad they're all wrong.

...the Nobel Prize winners call on the Turkish government to end up with discrimination towards national and religious minorities and cancel Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code, which supposes criminal punishment for "insulting Turkishness". Nobel Prize winners call on Armenia to "give opportunity for holding free and fair elections, as well as respect human rights." Alongside they urge Turkey to open borders with neighboring Armenia, speed up mutual contacts and establish full diplomatic relations

In particular, the [U.N.] Convention says, "events at the beginning of the 20th century contain all elements of Genocide, approved by the convention," the document underscores

A lot of the points are valid, but Turkey has a lot of work to do before the opening of the border can be discussed.

Source: Yerkir

European Court Rules Against Armenia

This is a very interesting development. Here's what we know so far:

In a first-ever ruling relating to Armenia, the European Court of Human Rights on Thursday declared illegal the arrest of an Armenian opposition activist who helped to organize an anti-government demonstration more than four years ago.

The plaintiff, Armen Mkrtchian, was detained by the police along with several other members of the radical opposition Hanrapetutyun (Republic) party after actively participating in an unsanctioned rally in Yerevan on May 14, 2002. He was released after being fined a largely symbolic 500 drams ($1.5) under Armenia’s Soviet-era Administrative Code.

Mkrtchian took his case to the Strasbourg-based court in November 2002...A panel of seven European Court judges, among them Armenian Alvina Gyulumian, unanimously accepted the 35-year-old oppositionist’s arguments, ruling that his brief detention violated a key article of the European Convention on Human Rights which takes precedence over all Armenian laws and government directives.

The Armenian authorities used the Administrative Code to arrest hundreds of opposition supporters and activists during the presidential elections of February-March 2003 and the April-May 2004 opposition campaign of street protests against President Robert Kocharian.

With elections just around the corner, it is important for the international community to look back to previous such instances and make sure they never happen again. We can't call ourselves a republic if the expression of free speech is nonexistent.

Source: ArmeniaLiberty