Yesterday the office of the Human Rights Defender of Armenia made a statement, which reads:
During the May 31, 2009 Elections for the Yerevan City Council the Office of the Human Rights Defender of the Republic of Armenia received more than 10 oral complaints, which mainly address the following issues:
• Citizens were transferred by mini-buses to voting-stations and were forced to vote for a certain candidate,
• Citizens of Gyumri, Vanadzor and other towns were transferred by mini-buses for taking part in the elections,
• The principle of secret voting was breached in a number of polling stations because of impropriate placement of polling booths.
• Alarms were received about obstacles raised to the work of journalists, as well as cases of assaults towards journalists were registered.
The Human Rights Defender of the Republic of Armenia within the limits of his liability is ready to consider any grounded complaint regarding electoral falsifications and calls upon competent state bodies make appropriate investigations of all presented violations. The Human Rights Defender of the Republic of Armenia condemns cases of assaults towards the journalists, phenomenon, which has become regularity during every election. The assault towards Armine Avetyan from newspaper “168 Hour” and election’s observer from “Transparency International” Sona Ayvazyan that took place on May 31 in Malatia-Sebastia voting station were conducted in the presence of head of electoral commission and police officers. RA Human Rights Defender calls upon all the corresponding bodies to take up all the necessary measures for revealing the assaulters.