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Armenia’s Human Rights Defender Kristinne Grigoryan has issued a message on Human Rights Day observed every year on 10 December. Her full statement is provided below.

"With the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 75 years ago, the big family of states agreed that the recognition of human dignity, equality, and inalienable rights of every member of the human family are the cornerstones of freedom, justice, and peace in the world.

The unamendable Article 3 of the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia provides that the human being shall be of the highest value in the Republic of Armenia. The inalienable dignity of the human being shall constitute the integral basis of his or her rights and freedoms.

That is the reason why the measure to evaluate democracies is the status of the guaranteeing of human rights and freedoms, and how public authorities ensure that people freely exercise their rights and freedoms. The creation of the state is that social consensus, one of the central conditions of which is the creation of opportunities for the practical realization of rights and freedoms, and their uninterrupted improvement. This implies that the primary function of public authorities and officials is to guarantee the conditions for the realization of human rights and freedoms. In the institutional structure of human rights protection in Armenia, the Human Rights Defender’s Office occupies an important place, as an independent Constitutional body, which aims at preventing and eliminating violations of rights and freedoms.

The concept of the protection of human rights, however, is not limited to the obligations of public authorities or independent bodies; it also implies an environment of recognition and respect of rights by the public, where better conditions for a person to realize their rights without discrimination exist, regardless of their sex, race, skin color, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion, world view, political or other views, belonging to a national minority, property status, birth, disability, age, or other personal or social circumstances.

The concept of rights is not virtual or abstract, it implies real possibilities for, for example, a person with disabilities to lead an independent life, it implies that a person who speaks out about environmental threats to their community is not silenced by fake legal processes and fines, it implies that a person should be able to expect a fair examination of their case in an independent, impartial court when any of their rights have been violated, it implies that no one in society should be stigmatized when they are exercising their right or are simply different from others. This means that human rights are universal and equally apply to all, as an obligation- to respect the rights of others, and as a right- to exercise one's own rights.

I congratulate you on Human Rights Day."