According to the stuff of Human Rights Defender of the RA, on 7 February, the Human Rights Defender Arman Tatoyan met a number of EU high-ranking officials in Brussels, including Frank Engel, the member of the European Parliament, Vassilis Maragos, the head of the EU Directorate-General for Neighborhood and Enlargement Negotiations (DG NEAR) for Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, and Eastern Partnership, as well as Herbert Salber, the EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus and for the crisis in Georgia.
During the meeting the issues related to the human rights situation in Armenia were discussed, notably international issues and the RA new constitutional law on “Human Rights Defender”. The importance was attached to the new law, considering it as a progressive and necessary step for implementing and strengthening the European human rights standards in Armenia.
Considering the active engagement of Arman Tatoyan, the EU officials highlighted the importance of his role in the human rights protection and promotion and expressed their readiness to develop the cooperation between the Defender and the EU institutions by expanding and making it continuous.
During the meeting with Herbert Salber, the EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus and for the crisis in Georgia, Arman Tatoyan raised the issue of participation of the Ombudsman of Artsakh in the European activities. He also expressed his deep concern over the decision to extradite the journalist A. Lapshin to Azerbaijan and its unacceptable negative impact, stressing that now the number of visits to Artsakh should be increased. The Defender presented to H. Salber the details of the attacks by Azerbaijani armed forces near Chinari village on December 29, 2016, January 3 and 8, 2017, the results of the fact-finding activities conducted by the Defender’s representatives and the report with the obtained evidence.
