Monitoring of the conditions in which human rights work was carried out during the first 6 months of 2019, and more specificallyin which human rights defenders worked, indicates of an increased rate of online threats of violence, hate speech and misinformation. The target of such online assaults were primarily women human rights defenders and defenders of LGBTI persons. The increase in targeting these human rights defenders is primarily related to manipulative tactics employed by groups and individuals affiliated with the ousted authorities, as well as by the Armenian Apostolic Church (its servants) engaging wide circles of the society around sensitive issues. More specifically, these groups and individuals have been portrayingactivities aimed at increasing human rights sensitivity as anti-national, against traditional family values, while at the same time portraying the current authorities as advocates of “unacceptable” values. At the same time, we had already noted in our 2018 report that attorneys who had taken up defense of high profile former officials charged with criminal offences, experienced a surge of hatred and intolerance, a phenomenon that carried on in the first 6 months of 2019 as well, and resulted in even more adverse manifestations, such as physical stalking and harming the property of one such attorney. We have also documented for 2019 that environmental activists continued to be sued by a mining company for alleged defamationwhich created unfavorable conditions for their environmental work. In addition to this, without sufficient grounds one of the environmental activists was taken to the police station for an alleged suspicion of significant fraud. The subject of the suspicion was the fundraising event organized publically for the individuals carrying out protection of Amulsar Mountain. Aside from targeting individual human rights defenders, activists and NGOs, the first half of 2019 was notable by an overall organized campaign against human rights work, most remarkably by a campaign against the Open Society Foundations –Armenia and its beneficiaries. Parallel to presenting violations of the rights of human rights defenders, the report also touches upon the actions taken up by human rights defenders to protect their rights and the outcomes thereof. The report also features statements and recommendations published by Human Rights House Yerevan and other NGOs.
