Armenia

The authorities continued to work on the new Criminal Code, which was adopted by the Parliament of the Republic of Armenia on 5 May 2021 and will enter into force in July 2022. The new Criminal Code includes amended hate crime provisions, namely extended list of protected characteristics under the general penalty enhancement provision (Aggravating circumstances for liability and punishment under the new Article 71), as well as extended lists of protected characteristics under the specific penalty enhancement provisions under a number of substantive offences.
In 2020, negotiations continued regarding the implementation of ODIHR's TAHCLE and PAHCT training programmes in Armenia. The efforts culminated in 2021 by signing two memoranda of understanding, on TAHCLE (concluded between Police of the Republic of Armenia and ODIHR) and PAHCT (concluded between the Academy of Justice, Office of the Prosecutor General, and the Investigative Committee of the Republic of Armenia), respectively. 
Furthermore, the Ministry of Justice collaborated with the Council of Europe in the framework of Council of Europe's Project "Strengthening the access to justice through non-judicial redress mechanisms for victims of discrimination, hate crime and hate speech in Eastern Partnership countries". The objective of the project is, among others, to assist relevant national institutions to develop their procedures and tools on collecting disaggregated data collection on discrimination, hate crime and hate speech, in order to better prevent these phenomena and improve recording and reporting. Two meetings with the participation of the key stakeholders, including civil society organizations, were held in 2019 and 2020 and a report entitled "Armenia's hate crime, hate speech and discrimination data collection system: Recommendations for improvement and for adopting a joint approach and national situational analysis", accessible here, was produced in September 2020.