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Members of the “Kamk” (Will) civic group are staging a protest outside the Armenian parliament building against the ratification of the Council of Europe’s Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence, better known as the Istanbul Convention.

According to a report by Zhamanak daily, the National Assembly’s standing committees are set to hold debates on the convention in a joint session on Friday in participation of representatives of the Council of Europe Human Rights Office.

Speaking to reporters, Artur Aramyan, a member of the civic group’s Coordinating Council, stated that they have already collected over 50,000 signatures against the ratification of the convention. He stressed Armenian domestic violence laws can be enforced successfully.

Prosperous Armenia opposition faction lawmaker Gevorg Petrosyan also joined the petition against the convention, urging other members of his faction to join it as well. The MP stressed the convention contradicts the Armenian Constitution and national values.

“We have legislation envisaging punishment for domestic violence, and under its pretest it is unacceptable to ratify something which is, in essence, aimed at destroying our national system of values,” Petrosyan said.

The lawmaker stated the Armenian laws are enough to effectively combat domestic violence and there is no need to introduce a new legal act.

“In fact, the ratification of this convention is not aimed at preventing domestic violence, but rather introducing new morals in Armenia, which the Prosperous Armenia Party strongly opposes. We all grew up in traditional families, we owe it to our children and coming generations to inherit such a family to them,” he stressed.

“Kamk” civic group founder Vahagn Chakhalyan said the Istanbul Convention’s authors will try their best to pressure the Armenian authorities to ratify the document.

“We see only one way to prevent all this: to get organized and fight against it immediately. We are the owners of our country and they shall put up with [the opinion of] Armenian citizens,” he stressed. “The ratification of this document will signal political end for the force that will do it.”

Former Yerevan City Council member Marina Khachatryan stressed the points of the convention which replace the concepts of ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ with those of ‘partners’ pose serious threats.

“Our country must reject same-sex families, non-traditional Armenian families. All efforts to undermine the traditional Armenian family, to destroy the Armenian Apostolic Church, Armenian language, history and culture must be crushed immediately,” she stressed.

Khachatryan said the document seeks to open up opportunities for the propaganda of “satanism and perversion" in Armenia and destroy the Armenian statehood.