Prosecuted cases are provided by the Investigative Committee and the General Prosecutor's Office, and include one case of physical assault committed with an anti-LGBTI motivation, two cases of harassment committed with a racist or unspecified motivation, and one case of damage to property committed with an anti-Semitic motivation.
The sentencing decision relates to a case of physical assault. The year-to-year drop in the numbers in the table above is due, among other possible factors, to changes in ODIHR's methodology, specifically the exclusion of cases of incitement to hatred, incitement to discrimination and incitement to violence.
Data reported by police are not disaggregated by bias motivation. Eleven cases of incitement to hatred, incitement to discrimination or incitement to violence were reported by the authorities but are not presented below as they fall outside the OSCE's hate crime definition.
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.
Action 4.7 of the 2023-2025 Action Plan to implement the National Strategy for the Protection of Human Rights envisages the creation of guides for prosecutors, investigators, and police officers on hate speech and hate-motivated crimes. In 2024, guides on investigating cases motivated by discrimination, hate speech, and hate crimes were developed with the support of international partners. The Minister of Internal Affairs is currently discussing a draft order "On approving the guidelines for the investigation of discrimination, hate speech, and hate-motivated crimes for police officers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs".
In 2024, a number of hate crime training initiatives were held for criminal justices actors:
- The Academy of Justice held a training or 129 judges, 16 candidate judges, and 34 prosecutors on "Current issues regarding equality and prohibition of discrimination".
- The Academy of Justice cooperated with the Council of Europe to organize a course for judges and prosecutors on implementing ECRI's General Policy Recommendation No. 15 on Combating Hate Speech.
- Twenty-five prosecutors participated in a training on "Public speech inciting or propagating hatred, discrimination, intolerance or hostility and the effective investigation of initiated criminal proceedings", held as part of the Council of Europe’s programme on "Promoting Equality and Non-Discrimination in Armenia".
- In September, a training session was held for representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Police, which aimed to eliminate discrimination in police activities and strengthen their capacity to prevent and uncover hate-motivated crimes and combat hate speech.
- In October, 16 employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Police participated in a workshop on investigating discrimination, hate speech, and hate-motivated crimes.
The 'Unspecified' bias motivation category includes crimes motivated by bias based on racial, national, ethnic or social origin, religion, political or other views, or other circumstances of a personal or social nature.
The UN OHCHR published relevant recommendations in its "Armenia: Compilation of information prepared by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights".
ODIHR recognizes Armenia's efforts to report hate crime information and data to ODIHR. However, based on the available information, it observes that law enforcement agencies in Armenia do not record the bias motivations of hate crimes, while the numbers of officially recorded hate crimes are low. In addition, ODIHR observes that Armenia would benefit from strengthening collaboration with civil society and facilitating their work on hate crimes, including victim support.
ODIHR recalls that in the Ministerial Council Decision 9/09, OSCE participating States committed to promptly investigating hate crimes and ensuring 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 taking a proactive and inclusive approach towards civil society, which plays a key role in addressing hate crimes comprehensively, and to reaching out to and providing 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 hate crime recording and data collection, as well as further resources and assistance to enhance co-operation between state authorities and civil society on hate crime.
For 2024, ODIHR received reports of hate incidents in Armenia from the following civil society organizations:
- New Generation Armenia
- Eurasian Coalition on Health, Rights, Gender and Sexual Diversity (ECOM)
- "Right Side" Human Rights Defender NGO
- International Institute for Religious Freedom (IIRF)
- Pink Armenia
To learn more about these organizations, visit the Contributors page.
In addition, some incidents were recorded as part of UNHCR’s ongoing monitoring.
All incidents submitted by the above organizations have been analysed by ODIHR. Those that were broadly considered to be hate crimes within the OSCE definition (criminal offence committed with a bias motive) are listed in the tables below according to the bias motivation category and a summary description is provided. Some incidents involved multiple biases and may be listed in multiple categories.
ODIHR’s insightsFor 2024, ODIHR received reports of 49 incidents that took place in Armenia in the following five bias motivation categories: racist and xenophobic, gender-based, anti-LGBTI, anti-Semitic and anti-Christian. Most incidents reported to ODIHR in Armenia were anti-LGBTI incidents. Of these, a significant number of incidents were classified as being both anti-LGBTI and gender-based. In addition, several incidents involved both racist and xenophobic and anti-LGBTI bias motivations. ODIHR observes that a significant number of incidents reported in Armenia targeted the LGBTI community, including several incidents of physical assaults committed by family members known to the victim. Several gay men were also specifically targeted in incidents involving blackmail or violent robbery. It should be noted that ODIHR did not receive any reporting on Armenia relating to disability hate incidents. This indicates potential gaps in the information reported here. |
Please note that incidents reported here are based on voluntary civil society submissions and as such might not reflect the actual number of incidents or the most targeted communities in Armenia.
To address under-reporting, ODIHR encourages any civil society organizations or groups that monitor hate incidents in Armenia to report these to ODIHR at hatecrimereport@odihr.pl.
To export an Excel sheet with summaries of all incidents from Armenia click here and search by year and country.