The outspoken lawmaker, Garnik Danielian, decried on Friday the “disgraceful” state of affairs inside Armenian prisons.
“The lack of basic conditions and improper treatment push prisoners to resort to extreme measures: hunger strikes, self-harm, and suicide,” Danielian wrote in a Facebook post. He claimed that neither Manasian nor the country’s current and former justice ministers have taken any “steps to rectify the situation.”
Manasian was quick rebut the accusation, saying that her office has regularly raised the problem with relevant law-enforcement authorities and released numerous statements and reports based on its representatives’ inspections of the prisons.
In a written statement, the former prosecutor also warned: “Such behavior by this individual [Danielian] is not only unacceptable but may also contain, in the context of his other actions, elements of an offence as defined by the Criminal Code.”
Contacted by RFE/RL’s Armenian Service, Manasian’s office did not specify by Monday afternoon which part of Danielian’s post may warrant criminal charges. Meanwhile, the lawmaker denied committing such a crime.
“Something astonishing is happening in the post-Soviet history of the Republic of Armenia: its human rights defender threatens a member of the National Assembly,” he said.
Zaruhi Hovannisian, a member of a team of civic activists monitoring prison conditions, denounced Manasian’s thinly veiled threat as “extremely dangerous and unacceptable.” She said the ombudswoman should have moved to address the parliamentarian’s concerns instead.
“It looked like a statement by an official defending the interests of a political faction,” Hovannisian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “The impartiality of the Office of the Human Rights Defender was thus called into question.”
Manasian, 36, is reputedly a close friend of Prosecutor-General Anna Vardapetian, having worked as one of her deputies before being installed as ombudswoman by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s Civil Contract party about two years ago. Opposition lawmakers rejected Manasian’s candidacy for the post at the time, saying that she cannot combat human rights abuses because of her background. Manasian has essentially refrained from criticizing the Armenian authorities’ human rights record and, in particular, their crackdowns on antigovernment protesters.