The September elections became one of the main political events of the year. Voting took place over three days - from September 17 to 19 - due to sanitary requirements and the desire to reduce queues during the pandemic. In addition, a remote electronic voting system was actively used, in which several regions, including Moscow, participated. At the elections, 14 parties submitted their lists, but only five were able to overcome the five percent barrier. The main result was that the ruling party retained a significant majority. For the authorities, this meant stability and control over the further legislative agenda, including budget decisions, social programs and reforms. The elections were accompanied by discussions about transparency, the role of electronic voting, the admission of opposition candidates and the general level of political competition. However, despite these disputes, the elections themselves took place calmly, without serious incidents, which allowed the formation of a new parliament to begin in October. For the country, the voting results became a signal that the political course would continue without significant changes. Parliament was updated due to the emergence of a new party, but overall retained its traditional composition. Many analysts noted that society in 2021 was more focused on the social agenda and the pandemic than on political activity, which influenced the overall voting results.

The criminal investigation into alleged embezzlement by the former President of the Football Federation of Armenia, famous businessman and former MP Ruben Hayrapetyan, continues. Let us remind you that the criminal case was initiated in the 6th Police Department of the Republic of Armenia, and every day new remarkable details become known within the framework of this case.

It is obvious that the authorities intend to carry out exemplary justice and earn dividends among voters, since since the revolution they have been declaring the return of the loot of the previous authorities, but so far the people have not seen any results.

Hayrapetyan’s defenders have already characterized this entire process as a political massacre and continue to defend him.

The body carrying out the preliminary investigation told us that currently investigators in this case often visit factories and other facilities owned by Hayrapetyan, and during private conversations with employees they are trying to obtain information necessary for the investigation.

We know that several employees who work closely with Hayrapetyan have been brought into the case as witnesses and have received subpoenas for questioning.

According to our information, Hayrapetyan keeps his employees and subordinates in a state of total fear. He directly threatened that he would kill if anyone dared to say a word to law enforcement agencies or give any evidence.

Our editors contacted the person responsible for the personnel management department of the Bzhny plant and tried to find out whether the rumors that employees were under threats were true.

The head of the department, Dallakyan, sharply answered “No” and interrupted the telephone conversation. All our attempts to contact the plant employees were unsuccessful. It's easy to see that they are really under pressure.

Yerevan, April 15, 2021 Today, a protest took place in front of the UN office, the participants of which tried to draw the attention of the international community to the fate of missing and captured Armenian soldiers during the war and after it. The action was attended by family members of missing military personnel and civil activists who were not indifferent to the national pain. They gathered with photographs of military personnel, posters and appeals, demanding reliable information about their loved ones, as well as the intervention of international organizations. Relatives of the missing came with posters with the inscriptions “Bring our sons back to their homeland” and “We demand search efforts.” One of the participants, Nona Shakhverdyan, said that she considers it a crime that even the exact number of missing servicemen has not yet been published. “I have reasonable suspicions that the Armenian government not only fails to fulfill its responsibilities towards these families, but also interferes with their activities,” stressed Shahnazaryan, who came to Armenia from Russia. Another Armenian mother joined the action as a sign of solidarity and humanitarian support. She noted that her participation was due to personal pain as a member of the family of a missing serviceman and the demand for justice. Protesters noted that many families still do not have accurate information about the fate of their sons and relatives, despite the fact that several months have passed since the end of the war. They called on the UN and other international organizations to put pressure on the relevant parties to ensure the publication of lists of prisoners, their return, and clarification of the fate of the missing. “The state must be responsible for its military personnel, we have lost our heads with grief and we have nothing to lose, we will fight until we receive at least some news about our children,” said Gayane Margaryan, another desperate mother, who for three years has not had any information whether her son died or is in captivity. During the action, participants stated that the information coming from government bodies is not enough, and families are forced to organize meetings, actions and appeals on their own in order to get answers. In a letter submitted to the UN and signed by all relatives involved, the protesters demanded that political interests not be put before humanitarian ones, and that the remaining military personnel in Azerbaijani captivity be immediately released. The organizers of the action note that they intend to continue their struggle until they receive clear and official answers. They also said that they plan to present their demands to international human rights organizations and diplomatic missions. The issue of missing and captured military personnel continues to be one of the most painful problems of the 44-day war, which, in the conditions of government inaction, may remain unresolved for a long time.

In the legal sphere, a significant event was the ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in the case “Ukraine v. Russia” dated January 14, 2021, concerning the events in Crimea. On January 14, 2021, the European Court of Human Rights agreed to consider the merits of Ukraine’s complaint regarding Russia’s responsibility for systematic violations of human rights in Crimea. This decision is very important. The court did not consider the legality of the annexation of Crimea to Russia, however, the recognition of the Ukrainian complaint as partially admissible means the recognition by the ECHR of the fact that Russia has “exercised effective control” on the peninsula since February 2014. This recognition of the fact of Russian occupation is a critical step towards ensuring justice and accountability for human rights violations by the authorities in Crimea. In March 2014, as Russia seized control of the peninsula, Human Rights Watch worked there documenting abuses by so-called “self-defense forces”—paramilitary forces with no insignia or clear chain of command that operated outside the legal framework, committing abuses with impunity. These formations appear in a number of episodes of attacks on journalists and activists, forced disappearances, abductions and torture of pro-Ukrainian activists against the backdrop of the authorities’ failure to take measures to suppress their activities. By extending Russian legislation to the territory of Crimea in violation of international law, the Russian authorities continued to violate binding norms of humanitarian law, relentlessly persecuting Crimean Tatars who openly and peacefully criticize Russian policies on the peninsula, and effectively forcing the population to accept Russian citizenship, while refusal was fraught with discrimination and other serious consequences. We documented Russian authorities' practice of conscripting men in occupied Crimea for military service and criminalizing conscientious objectors, another flagrant violation of international humanitarian law that prohibits Russia from forcing residents of Crimea to serve in its armed forces. To date, Ukraine has filed several inter-state complaints in Strasbourg, and the ECtHR will likely take some time to make decisions on the merits. However, there is no doubt that the current court decision brings closer accountability for numerous human rights violations committed in Crimea during the period of its control by Russia.