Law on Missing Persons urgent for Armenia – Helsinki Committee

The Helsinki Committee’s headquarters in the third largest city of Vanadzor has called for urgent measures to adopt a Law on Missing Persons.

It has said in a statement that the existing legislative gap leaves a number of legal, social and healthcare issues relating those persons unsolved.

“Taking into consideration the unsettled conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, and the fact that a number of civilians and servicemen went missing or were taken hostage, as well as the need to provide their families with legal, social, psychological and healthcare assistance, we find the adoption of the Law on Missing Persons to be of utmost importance,” reads the statement.

Speaking to Tert.am, Armen Kaprielyan, the head of a working group dealing with hostages and missing persons’ issues, said that despite Azerbaijan’s allegations on having no Armenian prisoner of war on its territory, there are actually a large number of Armenians being held hostage in the country since 1994.

He explained that both civilians and servicemen are among those people.

“We have reliable information that they are being held hostage. Reports about all this were obtained before 2005. Unfortunately, we have had no news since then, with the exception of a couple of cases,” he added.

Kaprielyan noted that over 200 individuals from Armenia went missing as a result of the Nagorno-Karabakh war, the real number of the disappeared being actually much higher. According to him, only the 1990 records can be considered reliable.

Asked why the legislative proposal was not introduced to parliament, he answered: “We got down to that work, elaborating a project, but my mission was limited to that. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was later to take charge of the issue,” he said.

The committee’s voiced the need for approving the legal proposal on the occasion of the International Day of the Disappeared, which is celebrated every year on August 30 to draw attention to the fate of individuals imprisoned at places and under poor conditions unknown to their relatives and/or legal representatives.

The spokesperson of Armenia’s Foreign Ministry could not be reached for comment in this connection.

The bill has been elaborated by several state agencies, including the National Assembly, the presidential staff, the Ministry of Defense, the Armenian Police, the National Security Service and the Ministry of Healthcare, as well as the International Committee of Red Cross and representatives of the Helsinki Committee’s Vanadzor headquarters. The document was ready back in April.

A former member of the National Assembly, Victor Dallakyan, had earlier proposed two draft laws On Missing Persons but both bills met the Government’s disapproval.

Kaprielyan said only government decisions and by-laws regulate the legal relations and problems concerning the missing.

He said no country involved in conflicts has similar laws, with Bosnia’s example being the only precedent.

“Bosnia is the only country in Europe where such a law exists and is effective,” he noted.