The agency said that the violence broke out after guards at the Nubarashen prison in Yerevan moved to transfer an unruly prisoner to another jail. It said that he has systematically “disrupted the normal functioning of the institution” and made “illegal demands” in a bid to enjoy privileged treatment by the prison administration.
“In support of the latter, some arrested persons and lifers showed disobedience, damaged prison cells’ property, burned mattresses, banged on the doors and so on,” read a statement released by the service.
It said that officers of the service’s Special Division joined Nubarashen guards in restoring order there. In particular, they searched the cells after forcibly removing the rioting inmates from them, added the statement.
Zhanna Aleksanian, a human rights activist, was the first to report earlier in the day what she described as a “brutal beating” of convicts serving life sentences at Nubarashen. She said she was alerted by one of those inmates after the crackdown.
“The caller was in a very, very bad condition, his voice was barely coming out,” Aleksanian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “The special forces had probably just left [the prison.] It's a very worrying and tough situation.”
Aleksanian accused the prison administration of not providing medical aid to the injured inmates. The Penitentiary Service statement effectively denied this, saying that two prisoners complained of major injuries and that they both were examined by prison doctors.
“As a result of X-ray tests conducted by the medical staff of the institution, no bone fractures were found in them,” it said.
Meanwhile, the office of Armenia’s human rights ombudswoman said that it sent a “rapid reaction group” to Nubarashen following the reported incident. It did not comment further.
The current chief of the Penitentiary Service, Tsovinar Tadevosian, is a reputed friend of Justice Minister Srbuhi Galian who was appointed to that post three months ago. She became the first-ever female head of the agency overseeing Armenia’s prisons. The 32-year-old Tadevosian previously ran its division dealing with “social, psychological and legal affairs.”
Prison conditions in Armenia have long been harsh by Western standards. Local human rights groups say that they have hardly improved during Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s seven-year rule.