EU and United Nations Development Programme reaffirm their support to implementation of the Strategy for Human Rights Protection

Today, the session of the Co-ordinating Council for Implementation of the 2020-2022 Action Plan arising from the National Strategy for Human Rights Protection, being implemented jointly with the Ministry of Justice and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), was held under the chairmanship of Acting Deputy Minister of Justice Armenuhi Harutyunyan. The session was also attended by Head of the Delegation of the European Union to Armenia, Ambassador Andrea Wiktorin; Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Natia Natsvlishvili; Human Rights Defender of the Republic of Armenia Kristinne Grigoryan; Deputy Secretary General of the Ministry of Justice Nvard Vardanyan; representatives of interested state bodies and civil society representatives. In the context of the Action Plan arising from the 2020-2022 National Strategy for Human Rights Protection, Armenuhi Harutyunyan touched upon the latest incidents taking place in Artsakh, emphasised the gross violations of human rights, display of aggression, creation of a humanitarian crisis and the restrictions on free movement of people by Azerbaijan.

During the session of the Co-ordinating Council, Harutyunyan briefly presented the implementation process of the 2022 Action Plan of the Human Rights Defender and particularly touched upon the incomplete or partially completed actions. Deputy Minister of Justice Armenuhi Harutyunyan attached importance to the participation of interested government agencies and members of civil society in order to have more targeted actions and measurable results in the next Action Plan.

Deputy Secretary General of the Ministry of Justice Nvard Vardanyan presented to the participants of the session of the Co-ordinating Council the course of implementation of the actions that the Ministry of Justice is in charge of implementing and the issues that have arisen. Attaching importance to the peculiarity of the event, Vardanyan also raised issues regarding the situation and developments in Nagorno-Karabakh. At the end of the discussion, the future actions were predetermined, which will be implemented with the concerned government agencies, international counterparts and members of civil society. All the participants of the session of the Co-ordinating Council shared the idea that human rights Protection is a consistent and ongoing task.