Criminals are more welcomed to Armenia than LGBT people

The head of the Police's Public Relations and Information Department Ashot Aharonyan addressed the information spread in Armenia media, that a huge number of criminals are coming to Armenia these days as thieves in law (criminals who are respected, have authority and a high ranking status within the criminal underworld in the old Soviet Union, Russia and the republics that formed the former Soviet Union) meeting is to take place. Aharonyan noted that thousands of people are visiting Armenia for Christmas and New Year holidays, where a person’s right to freedom of movement is protected by law.

Police have announced that the rumors are not true, and that the representatives of the criminal world are constantly in sight of the police, and that each of their move is monitored by law enforcement bodies. 2 weeks later the website Rosbalt.ru reported that the biggest meeting of “thieves in law” took place in Armenia.

Arsen Babayan, the head of Public Relations and Media Department of National Assembly, most likely by trying to support the statements given by the police, explained: “According to the same principle, among the visitors to Armenia these days there will probably be a lot of 'homo-addicts' as well. So what shall we do, shall we blame the Ministry of Health? It is better for the 'thieves in law' to come rather than 'homo-addicts', to whom, unfortunately, media seems to treat naturally".

* Note: homo-addiction is an offensive term to be used in Armenia referring to homosexuality.

Report: LGBT rights situation in Armenia 2011

LGBT rights violation can be witnessed in various spheres of social life. LGBT people state that there is discrimination toward them in educational institutions and there were cases when a person was bullied by a teacher because of being feminine (in case of a male person) or masculine (in case of a female person), forced to drop out from the university because of his/her sexual orientation. Scientific papers and work on this issue is not welcomed, because the stance of the lecturers is that it is a perversion and the person is perverted if he/she wants to work on this topic. A gay student was not allowed to write a paper about homosexuality as the lecturer stated that he can’t be objective taking into account his sexual orientation.

Employment remains one of the most problematic aspects of life for LGBT people as employers refuse to hire someone who is open about his/her sexual orientation or his either feminine (gay) or masculine (lesbian). Transgender people have no opportunity to be open about their gender identity and there is no relevant legislation which will allow transsexual persons to change sex. Quite often LGBT people refuse to visit healthcare institutions in case of a necessity being not sure about the confidentiality there. If they contact civil society organizations they are being referred to LGBT friendly doctors, otherwise there is a high risk that person will be discriminated and will receive degrading attitude.

Army remains one of the most challenging institutions due to its closed nature and non-written rules which exist there and lead to discriminative and violent approach toward this group of people. In most of the cases media approach toward LGBT people is biased and based on stereotypes, prejudice and has no scientific and contemporary approach. There is no political willingness from the side of government institutions to protect LGBT rights and quite often they appear in the position of violators.

The stance of civil society toward LGBT rights is not united as well. Despite the fact that civil society organizations are able to work in the sphere of LGBT rights protection and take actions for changes, there is no support from the government and public and some part of civil society.

Although there are no radical changes in the above mentioned aspects, in this report we will focus on several aspects of social life and will present most common issues and problems of LGBT community in the Republic of Armenia which were registered in the past 2011.

Read more about the attitude of society, media, church, police and achievments in 2011 in our official website