Yesterday Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan conducted a consultation in the police with the participation of the leadership of the staff. According to press-service of the president, Serzh Sargsyan said in his speech that meetings have always been and will be in Armenia as they are the composing part of democracy. He spoke about the main issues of the police, goals and objectives.
“I have called in this meeting to discuss a number of important issues, which relate to your activity, which directly relate to the role of the police in our country and further plans. I think these issues are more than crucial now and suppose that no one has any doubt of that,” he said when adverting to the issues of the police. “Every policeman from the average serviceman till the chiefs solves at least three issues – prophylactics of crimes, protection of public order, protection of public order and fight against crime. The police cannot solve these three issues on its own. For that we need the support and trust of the society. It is quite known that the police is the structure which has daily communication with citizens. Due to this communication the citizen forms his relation to this body. If the citizen trusts the policeman he/she trusts the state and the government. Why do I signify this? With one simple reason. During this meeting I am going to speak about he concerns, which the public has about your activity. Many of you may bring different examples when the normal functioning of the policemen turns into some political bargaining and in other words is politicized. Why? I ask you to ask yourselves this question and try to give an answer to this in your mind. It is not an easy thing to gain the trust of the public. It requires consistent work. The society must see that the police works for the security and safety and that it protects their rights and dignity. Do we have that picture now? Ask the society… Unfortunately not. The citizens of our country are expecting results from you. We should all realize this,” said Sargsyan. “I would like to speak about three categories of issues – issues, which are of concern to the society and connected to your work, relevant implementation of professional functions and the social issues of the policemen. One of the issues, which the society is concerned of is the protection of public order. The post-electoral developments showed that there is a lot that needs to be done in this area.” According to the president, all the actions of the police should be only within the law. Otherwise, it is impossible to gain law and order, he stressed. Speaking of the March 1 events, the president noted that it was not only the fault of the opposition, but also the fault of the state, particularly, the police. He emphasized that on March 1 the Armenian police came across a specially prepared program of disorders for the first time, and if the police’s actions had been more professional, it would have been possible to avoid both victims and injured. “During the modern history of Armenia for the first time the police had to deal with the mass disorder of such scales. It was understandable that this situation would be full of threats and danger. As a result we had the worst scenario. I am sure if our police was more professional and prepared we might be able to avoid 2 victims among police and 8 citizens,” he said by hinting at the democracy principles in the context. “We are building a democratic state. I have announced many times that I am going to protect our citizens’ right to express their protest. And as you see, people now express their protest on television and in the printed press; and a demonstration is one of the forms of expressing a protest. We all must realize that our rights cannot be more preferable than the rights of others. The rights of each of us end where the other people’s rights begin. We must realize this. There have been rallies in our country and I am sure they will still take place. Actions of protest take place in all the countries, where there are over thousands of participants. The task of the police is to watch the public order. It means that you should work in the framework of the law. We must all perfectly know the law. If mass measures are beyond the frames of the law, the police will be fully responsible for that. "Nobody has a right to hide his criminal intentions under the slogan of democracy. All violations of order should be stopped strictly but not toughly,” he said. “Two months ago I was asked what I was going to do with the children of statesmen, who think they have privileges and think that can do the traffic the way want without being punished. I answered, “You will see.” As we are having a working meeting today I’d like to bring an example. On the road a luxury car rolls by with fancy plate numbers and the traffic police has got nothing else to do but to ignore that and instead halt another poor car driver and fine him. It means he is creating an image that he is working but in fact nothing is being done,” he said. He said that it is inadmissible that "the traffic police ignore the violations of the holders of foreign-made cars with cool numbers and find fault with simple drivers". He also stressed that settlement of social problems of policemen is in the focus of the RA leadership’s attention. “You are required to take concrete steps and I am going to demand not only reports from you but also receive the public feedback on that.” The president also spoke about the fact that many people have private bodyguards. “In our country the body, which provides safety for citizens and protects them in the society is the police. It should be the police to keep the citizens alert from making crimes not the bodyguards. But unfortunately we have a different picture. I’ll speak about this fact next time though.” He also spoke about the professional functions of the policemen by emphasizing that the police should stop abusing their rights and powers and any step that belies the human dignity. “Every policeman must understand that it is unacceptable to attain evidence through illegal methods. Believe me you will be respected only when you respect yourselves, the uniform you are wearing. Only when people realize that they are uncorrupt and honest they will start to respect them. That is the only way to fix the positive image of the policeman. The real policeman is the one, who estimates his own dignity and virtue so much higher than the offered bribe.” Sargsyan also spoke about the social issues of the policemen by stating that a better package of improving the social status of the policemen is to be developed. At the end Sargsyan said that these meetings will be continuous. He said, “Today you have three tasks to handle – protection of public order, stopping unacceptable traffic behavior, decent implementation of professional functions.”