For anyone held in a prison or detention centre, a great deal depends on whether someone independent is paying attention — and on whether the different bodies charged with that scrutiny actually work as one. In Armenia, several institutions share that duty, but most of the time they work apart.
Over two days in Tsaghkadzor, on 20 and 21 July, the people who carry that responsibility set out to change that. Members of the Public Monitoring Groups under the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Internal Affairs set down with colleagues from both ministries, the Human Rights Defender staff, the Penitentiary Service and the Prison Medicine Centre - monitors, doctors, lawyers and officials who form a single safeguard around the rights of detained people, but who rarely get the chance to compare notes and exchange views.
Much of the work was practical. Participants traced how the country’s laws and institutions actually interact when someone is deprived of their liberty. They worked through how to recognise, document and prevent torture and ill-treatment; how healthcare and mental health are handled in detention; and how to protect those most at risk.
They sharpened the follow-up too, focusing on how findings are reported and how monitoring bodies and relevant state institutions can co-ordinate and avoid duplication.
But the more telling shift was quieter. For two days, people whose paths rarely cross in person listened to one another's difficulties in the same room. Through expert talks, hands-on discussions, and exchanges of experience, a monitor’s question found a doctor’s answer, a legal gap became a shared problem to solve.
More than technical training, the event served as a platform for people to listen to their fellow colleagues’ challenges, refine realistic solutions, and build trust across agencies. Trust like that is slow to build and quick to fade, and it is often what helps a warning sign surface in time.
None of this will transform detention conditions overnight. But what it does is make the safeguard more likely to work: monitors who know each other’s methods, reporting that draws a response, and institutions readier to act on what monitoring turns up, all measured against the European human rights standards. For the people on the other side of the cell door, that is where change begins.
These events is part of the Council of Europe’s support within the framework of the Project “Further strengthening the protection of the rights of persons in detention” that assists the national authorities to further enhance penitentiary reform, prison health care and the protection of human rights of persons deprived of liberty. The Project is financed within the framework of the Council of Europe Action Plan for Armenia 2023-2026 and implemented by the Council of Europe.