December 10

On December 10, the international human rights day, it started snowing in Yerevan – for the first time this winter.
The first snow did not impede the opposition to conduct a rally in Yerevan. A1+ blog has published the opinions of random passers-by about the status of human rights in Armenia. “While the elected people at official receptions celebrate “equal rights and equal opportunities, numerous citizens at home, in the street, everywhere face the opposite of those concepts. Passers-by in the streets evaluate the reality, the daily thoughts and their rights in a most pessimistic way. The general thought is, “citizens think that human rights in Armenia are being infringed at every step, and there is no area where an individual would feel protected,” is written in the blog.
Unzipped blog has also covered human rights, mentioning that there are about 70 political prisoners in Armenia on the human rights day. “The freedom of assemblies and rallies is restricted; TV is not free or is partially free. There are still banned television channels (A1+, Noyan Tapan.) The print media are free but they have no sufficient circulation for reaching the whole population. Armenian courts are not independent and a lot of judicial case hearings remind of theaters of absurdity. Pressures are imposed upon entrepreneurs, so that the opposition “gives in,” that’s how Unzipped presents the situation in gloomy colors. But the blog also sees positive developments in Armenia. “The best thing that took place in the area of human rights was launching the Ombudsman’s Institute. I would grant Armen Harutyunyan with the title Man of the Year.”
The blog Ditord has recalled that December 10 is the Karabakh independence referendum and constitution day, expressing an opinion that Karabakh, in the context of democracy and human rights protection, exceeds both Armenia and Azerbaijan that have been trying to appear as regulators of the Karabakh issue and noting that the only solution for the problem is the further improvement of human rights and democracy in Armenia and Karabakh.
Click here to listen to the audio file of the interview with Susan Solomon, a marketing analyst and an expert in public relations or listen to it online by clicking the player icon below: