Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor

Yesterday evening, Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor (hereinafter referred to as HCAV) was informed that at 18:55, Russian national Irina Aleksandr Belacheu arrived in the RA by Tbilisi-Yerevan flight, and was immediately detained by police officers and transferred to a special territory. The detained woman’s daughter called HCAV and informed the Organization that her mother had been wanted by the RF law enforcement since 2020 under part 2 of Article 360 of the RF Criminal Code (assault or a threat of assault on persons or organizations that enjoy international protection for the purpose of provoking a war or of complicating international relations).

It should be recorded at the outset that the RA Criminal Code does not imply an Article comprising such corpus delicti. In addition, there were no detention grounds as established under Article 108 of the RA Criminal Procedure Code. Nonetheless, the RA law enforcement bodies ignored all these important conditions and violated national and international obligations of protecting human rights by deciding to detain the 55-year-old woman. The RA law enforcement bodies also did not take into account that the real reason for charging her under an Article implying such a grave sanction was Belacheu’s participation in a protest in Kyiv in 2016, during which she hit the iron railing of the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Kyiv with an egg, and for which she has been criminally prosecuted to date. This means that based on her political views and due to exercising her right to freedom of assembly and associations, Irina Belacheu is being criminally prosecuted and is currently illegally held deprived of liberty. 

Noteworthy, the protest action took place in Kyiv back in 2016, after which the Russian Federation initiated a criminal prosecution without the woman’s presence, without ensuring her right to be heard, and without existence of evidence, as a result of which she faces imprisonment of up to 12 years in the RF.

We record once again that representatives of the law enforcement system of the Republic of Armenia are fulfilling illegal requirements of an unlawful state, as a result of which, this time they deprived a person of liberty for 72 hours without any legal grounds.

Further, we also record that the Republic of Armenia does not have a systemic approach in the frame of human rights protection. Over recent months, HCAV has been receiving information regarding detentions of RF citizens by the RA law enforcement based on their prosecutions. Nearly all of those detentions ended up releasing those persons a few hours after the detention (mainly 6 hours later) based on the elimination of the need to hold them detained.

Noteworthy, on 6 July 2023, the RA Ministry of Justice decided to reject the RF application to extradite Maria Rouz, while all our efforts in the frame of protecting her rights, as well as alerts addressed to the RA Human Rights Defender and RA Prosecutor General’s Office were in vain. 

Summing up, we demand that Irina Aleksandr Belacheu, who is currently  illegally detained and held deprived of liberty, be immediately released.

At the same time, we hereby state that foreign nationals or stateless persons, who have come to the RA due to prosecutions or criminal cases initiated for their political views or beliefs in their citizenship or residence state, are likely to be subjected to physical and psychological violence, inhuman or degrading punishment or treatment, torture or execution, in case they return to their state.

Thus, the Republic of Armenia, represented by the relevant competent bodies,

should refrain from organizing the process of extraditing those persons to the demanding state. 

According to the RA Constitution, domestic legislation and international treaties and conventions ratified by the RA, no-one shall be extradited to a foreign state (even if it is that person’s state of citizenship),  where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment or treatment in that state. 

* At the same time, Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor states that all foreign nationals or stateless persons, who have been prosecuted in their countries for their beliefs and currently face the legal issue of being extradited  by the RA, can apply to the Organization to get the relevant legal support.

To this end, the aforementioned persons can call HCAV lawyers at

• 093-81-92-75
• 091-20-09-71