A staff
member “Civil Society Institute” NGO Isahak Khachatryan is member of the Torture
Prevention Expert Council under the Human Rights Defender (Ombudsman) Office of
Armenia. Isahak has conducted more than 20 rapid response visits from June to
December, 2012. As a follow-up to calls received on the Ombudsman’s hotline 116
he visited police stations and penitentiary institutions together with a staff
member of the Ombudsman’s Office.

To
remind, Human Rights Defender Office of Armenia in cooperation with 9
non-governmental organizations, including Civil Society Institute, re-launched
its rapid response service since November 1, 2011.

“Summarizing the rapid responses that I have
carried out, I can state that the majority of cases concerns unlawful summoning
to police stations and groundless apprehension for hours without notification
of the rights”, says Isahak Khachatryan.

He highlights
the cases when people without determining their legal status were detained for
hours at police stations and were not informed that they had the right to leave
a police station after expiry of 3 hours.

“When we requested to show us the registry containing
information about people summoned to police stations in order to find out when
a person had been summoned there, we were denied in several cases or the
registries were brought with delay. We can assume that the time when people were
brought to the stations had not been recorded”, - added Isahak Khachatryan

On
October 24, 2012 a woman called to the 116 hotline and informed that police
officers of the Kentron police station of Yerevan
had taken her husband to the police station to find out whereabouts of their
son and were keeping him there. “There was no record in the registry about the
fact of summoning that citizen to the police station. We talked with him in
private, explained his rights, particularly that he had the right to leave the police
station if he wanted. To this he stated that he did not want to stay there and
left the police station with us”, says a member of the rapid response group.

There
was another call about summoning a person to a police station and detaining
there for prolonged hours without grounds on November 21, 2012. This time there
were three persons summoned to the Mashtots Department of Yerevan Police. “We
talked with the citizens in private and found out that they had been detained
without legitimate grounds. They were released following our intervention but
later refused to lodge a written complaint with the Ombudsman”, stresses out
Isahak Khachatryan.

According
to him, mainly relatives and family members of those who have been summoned to
police station call the hot line of the rapid response. As for the calls and complaints
from persons detained in penitentiary institutions, the majority includes
demands to review their cases and ensure their right to a fair trial.