Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor

On 26 January 2022, Yerevan General Jurisdiction Court, presided by judge K. Farkhoyan, continued the trial of human rights activist Sashik Sultanyan’s case.

He was charged under point 1 of part 2 of Article 226 of the RA Criminal Code (Actions aimed at the incitement of national, racial or religious hatred, at racial superiority or humiliation of national dignity committed publicly or by mass media), by which voicing violations of the rights of Yezidis residing in Armenia was qualified as incitement of national hatred. 

Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor advocates Samson Galstyan, and advocate Ara Ghazaryan are implementing protection of Sashik Sultanyan’s rights.

During the previous court hearing, the defense motioned to apply to the Constitutional Court to determine constitutionality of the Article. However, the Court found it purposeful to tackle the issue after examining the proofs.

During the hearing of January 26, the defense made a motion to allow Sashik Sultanyan to leave the country during February 5 - February 15 to have discussions with representatives of the European Commission and the European Parliament regarding rights of national minorities. The Court upheld the motion and then went on to examine the evidence.

Prosecutor A. Karapetyan presented the written evidence, i.e., translation of the conversation (which is the basis of the criminal case) and parts from wiretapping.

The defense made a statement, presenting their observations regarding the evidence. Defender Ara Ghazaryan stated that persecution against Sashik Sultanyan was launched before this criminal case grounds emerged, which leads to the conclusion that he was persecuted due to his human rights activity.

It is noteworthy that the NSS started wiretapping Sashik Sultanyan in April 2020, 5 months before the criminal case was opened. Wiretapping against him started based on a report from a  National Security Service counterintelligence officer. According to the report, the investigation was launched on suspicions of overthrowing the Constitutional Order, although the report did not contain any evidence or fact of such an act by Sashik Sultanyan.Such an investigation by the counterintelligence unit could only be initiated against alleged spies or terrorists. Of course, no evidence of such crimes was identified during those five months. While there were absolutely no grounds presented for the operative investigation, including wiretapping, the motion for it was granted by the court. The NSS actually  saw and presented Sashik Sultanyan’s human rights activism as an attempt at overthrowing the constitutional order.

Thus it turns out that the investigation was done on the suspicion of overthrowing the constitutional order, while the ultimate criminal case was launched on the grounds of inciting ethnic hatred. 

Another noteworthy piece of information was that the criminal case was launched based on a report from Narek Malyan, infamous for his attacks and targeting of civil society and activists. It turns out that the NSS  used an extremely suspicious report by Narek Malyan - who is known for his targeting of human rights activists - to initiate a criminal case against human rights activist Sashik Sultanyan.

The defense stated in court that the materials acquired from April to August 2020 should be considered inadmissible not only because it was illegal, but also because the information obtained through it was unrelated to the charges brought against Sultanyan.

The defense also presented their position regarding parts of wiretapping. Defender Ara Ghazaryan particularly stated the fact that in the conversation, Sashik Sultanyan criticised  the Armenian authorities and not Armenians. Moreover, expression of his opinion and voicing human rights issues was qualified as hate speech.

HCA Vanadzor advocate Samson Galstyan also addressed  misunderstandings in the translation of the conversation and manifestations of inaccurate presentation of Sashik Sultanyan’s speech. Sashik Sultanyan also addressed this issue and noted that the conversation was not translated directly, and an additional emotional context was introduced by using specific words in Armenian. The thing is that the translation of the interview (which is the basis of the criminal case) was not done by a licensed professional, and the person doing the translation has a distinctly and publicly articulated biased attitude towards Sultanyan’s activism. The motions by the defense not to consider this translation as accurate were ignored by the prosecution.

The defense once again drew attention to the fact that the conversation was not supposed to become a published material, rather, it was a private conversation, non-public speech, which does not fall within the Article of the charge. 

The Court will continue examining evidence at 16:00 on 10 March 2022.