The number of prosecuted cases are provided by the General Prosecutor's Office and include 2 cases of attempted homicide, 1 case of physical assault, 2 cases of damage to property and 63 cases of incitement to violence. Some of the reported cases may fall outside the OSCE's hate crime definition.
Data reported by police are not disaggregated by bias motivation and may include cases that fall outside the OSCE's hate crime definition.
The Government of Armenia adopted the 2023-2025 Action Plan stemming from the National Strategy for the Protection of Human Rights. The Strategy contains a number of measures to counter hate crimes. Action 4.7 provides for the development of guidelines for investigating cases of hate crime, hate speech, and discrimination for the police, investigative agencies, and the prosecutor's office.
In 2024, the Criminal Code of Armenia was amended to cover aggravating circumstances for sentencing, including for crimes motivated by hatred, intolerance, or hostility based on several protected characteristics.
In 2023, the Academy of Justice held a training on "Current issues regarding equality and prohibition of discrimination" for 94 judges, 13 candidate judges, and 25 prosecutors. In 2024, 129 judges, 16 candidate judges and 34 prosecutors were trained in the same course.
In 2023, a HELP training on Combating Hate Speech (in line with ECRI GPR 15) was conducted and attended by 24 judges and 7 prosecutors, and again in 2024 and attended by 6 judges.
This category includes crimes, motivated by hatred, intolerance or enmity by racial, national, ethnic or social origin, religion, political or other views, or other circumstances of a personal or social nature.
The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) published relevant recommendations in its "Concluding observations on the combined 12th to 14th periodic reports of Armenia : Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination".
ODIHR recognizes Armenia's efforts to report its hate crime information and data to ODIHR. However, based on the available information, it observes that the law enforcement agencies of Armenia do not record the bias motivations of hate crimes. In addition, ODIHR observes that Armenia would benefit from strengthening collaboration with and facilitating the work of civil society on hate crimes, including on victim support.
ODIHR recalls that in the Ministerial Council Decision 9/09, OSCE participating States committed to promptly investigate hate crimes and ensure that the motives of those convicted of hate crimes are acknowledged. To that end, law enforcement agencies must first record the bias motivation of hate crimes.
In Ministerial Council Decisions 9/09 and 13/06, OSCE participating States committed to take a proactive and inclusive approach towards civil society, which plays a key role in addressing hate crimes comprehensively, and to reach out to and provide assistance to hate crime victims and victimized communities. ODIHR stands ready to support Armenia in meeting these commitments through its comprehensive resources and tailored assistance in the area of hate crime recording and data collection, as well as through further resources and assistance addressing effective co-operation between state authorities and civil society on hate crime.
The assessment of incidents reported by ODIHR is without prejudice to the applicability and relevance of other branches of public international law, particularly international humanitarian law and international criminal law. In addition to the hate incidents displayed on Armenia's country page, ODIHR received information on a number of hate incidents that were not included as they go beyond the scope of ODIHR's Hate Crime Report.
🛈 Please note that the total number of incidents may be lower than the sum of incidents presented in the breakdown chart above, as some incidents involve multiple bias motivations.
🛈 ODIHR no longer presents descriptions of property attacks in the incident tables below. Data on property attacks are presented in the breakdown charts above. One property attack may target multiple properties or involve multiple types of attack.