For three consecutive weeks now, the staff of Open Society Foundations-Armenia and citizens visiting the office have been facing persecution and psychological harassment by members of the Veto initiative. Throughout this time, the Foundations have refrained from public actions and statements, trusting that the law-enforcement agencies will act appropriately to secure the normal functioning of the office and preventing potential violence and conduct that harms citizens’ honor and dignity.
However, all logic was transgressed by the incident that took place in front of the office on 25 September and the ensuing events, which gravely violated the rights of citizens that had visited the office.
On 25 September 2019, the office of Open Society Foundations-Armenia was visited by volunteer teachers that had participated in the Summer School project implemented in the Ararat Marz under a joint program of the Foundations and the Republic of Armenia Ministry of Education, Science, Culture, and Sports. After visiting and leaving the office, members of the Veto initiative stalked the teachers, took photos and videos of them, falsely accused them, and subsequently posted those materials in the Internet, urging social media users to collect and supply information on the teachers visiting the Foundations.
As a consequence of the lies and defamations circulated against them, the volunteer teachers that had participated in the Foundations’ program have since suffered public reproach and insults from the school staff and parent communities. In reality, though, these are teachers that, for a whole month, volunteered to teach Armenian language and math to 185 schoolchildren in the Ararat Marz, who had achieved less during the academic year and had fallen behind the general education curriculum.
The publication of false and defamatory information about the teachers, their public persecution, and the resulting public reproach in their communities is, in the Foundations’ opinion, an abuse of the right to freedom of assembly by the Veto initiative, which has manifested itself in the form of grave violations of citizens’ right to private life and staining of their honor, dignity, and pedagogical reputation.
We reiterate our appeal to the law-enforcement agencies and the Office of Armenia’s Human Rights Defender to properly assess what happened and to act in the interests of democracy and the rule of law in order to reinstate the rights, honor, and dignity of Armenian citizens.