Obligations of the government and opposition to respect the system of human rights

1. The external and internal challenges presented these days require solidarity, respect for each other’s rights, including opinions, regardless of political or other subject matter viewpoints.

2. From the point of view of these principles, both public authorities and their opponents have a key role to play in disseminating the content of public and political discussions, and of public discourse.

3. Each of us must serve these priorities: (a) ensuring the realization of socio-economic rights in the post-war situation, (b) highlighting the grounds of criminal liability for the violations of the rights of our compatriots by the Azerbaijani armed forces for their war crimes, etc.

4. Unfortunately, the discourse labeled as “new and old”, “black and white” brought to the public social-political platform, has been introduced, and continues in our country, which is an unacceptable agenda of dividing the society into groups and sowing discrimination.

In addition, the use of vocabulary (often not identified the intended addressee) by government authorities and officials, has become widely used and is contributing to the deepening of intolerance in the country (for example, “pizza-eater”, “sell-out”) is impermissible.

I mention the authorities and officials first and foremost, because they are ultimately responsible for the content of public dialogue and discourse in the broadest sense, both the priorities of the country, as well as for overcoming intolerance.

5. It is of great concern that various circles of political or public opposition, go on to ignore the norms of a system adherent to human rights, and by such behavior, further contribute to the deepening of intolerance and increasing of tensions.
The use of vocabulary by certain circles of the political opposition to divide the society into groups, to develop the agenda of insulting people, and even to encourage it, is condemnable. For example, it is not acceptable for certain public figures to use expressions that offend a part of the society, such as “mud”, “zombies”, etc.

6. The consistent and focused observations of the Human Rights Defender’s staff reveals that this unacceptable situation is exacerbated by the fact that both the authorities and social networks supporting various opposition circles (especially Facebook) organize the operation of fake-pages and groups operating such fake accounts.

These pages and accounts operate in groups with specific instructions of cursing people, insulting their dignity, making threats, and calling for violence.

7. In general, it is absolutely unacceptable to make the “culture” of swearing and threats a part of the public discourse.

8. It is highly reprehensible that in the case of the government, that there are social media attacks organized or coordinated by high-ranking officials. Moreover, according to the well-founded experts of the Human Rights Defender’s Office, some of these officials personally maintain fake-pages and personally spread hatred, threats and insults from those pages.

9. As a result, the entire Armenian social media space has been flooded with swearing and insults, threats against each other and hate speech, all of which fundamentally violate the requirements and standards of human rights.

10. Unfortunately, these vicious phenomena have seen a sharp increase in volume over the last few years, gaining a systematic and institutional character.

11. I hoped that during these critical days, such a development would be ruled out and we would be united, taking into account the imperative of all of us to be united, to respect each other’s rights, and to seek solutions for all problems based on that very principle.

12. But not only did it not happen, but now we are dealing with a situation that grossly violates human rights (immunity from mental anguish, emotional distress, the right to individual privacy and family life), is detrimental to public health and to the atmosphere of solidarity in the country; and, these days, it undermines the security of our country.

13. The socio-political system must always be based on human rights as high universal values; be guided by the principle of respect for those rights, including the opinion of others.

14. Therefore, we must act with respect for the fundamentals system of human rights, correctly determine our priorities these days, and be united for those priorities, for the rights of each of us, relying on our own powerful potential.