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Kurdish Human Rights Project: This is the legacy website of the Kurdish Human Rights Project, containing reports and news pertaining to human rights issues in the Kurdish Regions for 20 years.

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ECtHR Rules Against Armenia in Three More KHRP-Assisted Cases
KHRP welcomes today’s judgements from the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), which found Armenia in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in three KHRP-assisted cases involving repression of opposition demonstrations.

The three applicants – Sargis Amiryan and Zhora Sapeyan of Ashtarak, and Maksim Gasparyan of Yerevan – took their cases to the Court after being punished by the Armenian authorities for allegedly participating in ‘unauthorised’ protests in February 2003 against irregularities in the first round of presidential elections that took place that month. Amiryan and Gasparyan were each given ten days’ administrative detention and Sapeyan was made to pay a fine. The Court found that in its handling of their cases Armenia had violated Article 11 of the ECHR, which guarantees freedom of assembly and association.

The rulings come in the wake of three judgements in December in which ECtHR judges found Armenia in violation of Article 3 (prohibition of torture) and Article 6 (right to a fair trial) in KHRP-assisted cases involving three members of opposition political parties who were detained in March 2003.

‘These individual cases reflect a far wider pattern of repression of political opposition in Armenia, which was also seen during the state of emergency declared after the 2008 presidential elections,’ said KHRP Executive Director Kerim Yıldız. ‘It is to be hoped that the Armenian authorities will take these judgements as the point of departure for far-reaching reforms, in partnership with civil society and the international community, in order to ensure protection of human rights and the rule of law.’