On 17 October 2018, the founding assembly of the Coalition for Protection of Human Rights took place. During the meeting, the rules and regulations were discussed and approved, the governing board was elected and the avenues of the coalition’s development were discussed.
The Coalition for Protection of Human Rights was founded in the scope of the “Human Rights: Monitoring and Publicity” project. It is implemented in the scope of a grant allocated by the “Commitment to Constructive Dialogue” project funded by the European Union.
During the founding assembly of the coalition, Zhanna Alexanyan, the President of the “Journalists for Human Rights” NGO, noted that each organisation involved in the coalition was well-known in its field and had great reputation.
After the coalition comprising 10 civil society organisations had been founded and its rules and regulations had been approved, the governing board was elected. It consists of 9 NGO representatives. In the future, it is expected that other non-governmental organisations working in the sector will join the coalition.
The Coalition for Protection of Human Rights will implement projects aimed at human rights protection and prevention of violations.
Zhanna Alexanyan noted that in the scope of the “Human Rights: Monitoring and Publicity” project the coalition had a goal to contribute to human rights protection in three directions: diminishing threats against human rights defenders, protection of rights of persons with disabilities, protection of rights of persons in closed institutions, that is, military servicemen and prisoners, and torture prevention.
Even though only 4 months have passed since the launch of the project, it has already had success. For instance, as regards the third component of the project, Zhanna Alexanyan noted that they had raised the issue of a person’s sentence being issued due to a self-confession testimony which had been extracted from that person with violence. Based on this, criminal case was initiated.
The coalition members got familiar with the work already carried out and discussed questions on the meetings and work to follow.
The founding members of the Coalition for Protection of Human Rights are the following NGOs: “Journalists for Human Rights” NGO, “Power of Law” NGO, “Equal Rights, Equal Opportunities” NGO, “Association of Free Journalists” NGO, “Free Citizen” NGO, “Journalists for the Future” NGO, “Citizen-Taxpayer Business” NGO, “Community Mobilisation and Support Centre” NGO, “International Community of Human Rights” NGO, “Centre of Economic Rights” NGO.
