Amnesty International’s report. LGBTI persons’ and women’s rights in Armenia

The adoption of a draft bill prohibiting all forms of discrimination was put on hold, while provisions expressly prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation were removed, it is stated in Amnesty International human rights organization’s 2014/2015 annual report.

The anti-discrimination bill was drafted as part of the requirements for Armenia’s EU Association membership, but was abandoned after the government opted instead to join the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union, is noted in report.

The survey also has a reference to LGBT friendly bar’s explosion. Particular it says, that on 25 July 2013, a court in Yerevan sentenced two young men who threw Molotov cocktails into a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people friendly bar to two-year suspended sentences (Arameh and Hambik Khabazyan brothers were sentenced to one year seven months’ provisional imprisonment and two years’ probation). Despite admitting the homophobic motives behind their attack, both men were amnestied in October 2013.

Concerning women’s rights issues in report is noted, that on 5 November, staff of the NGO Women’s Resource Centre and other women’s rights activists were threatened and verbally assaulted as they were leaving a court room where they had been assisting a victim of domestic violence.

In 2013, the Women’s Resource Centre had received anonymous death threats following its calls for gender equality legislation.

No effective investigations into either of these incidents had been conducted by the end of the year, says the report.