VZCZCXRO6976
RR RUEHAG RUEHAST RUEHDA RUEHDBU RUEHDF RUEHFL RUEHIK RUEHKW RUEHLA
RUEHLN RUEHLZ RUEHNP RUEHPOD RUEHROV RUEHSK RUEHSL RUEHSR RUEHVK
RUEHYG
DE RUEHYE #0645/01 2591319
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 161319Z SEP 09
FM AMEMBASSY YEREVAN
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 9491
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RUEHLMC/MILLENNIUM CHALLENGE CORPORATION WASHINGTON DC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 YEREVAN 000645 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR DRL AND EUR/CARC 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM PGOV PREL AM
SUBJECT: YOUTH ACTIVIST PERSECUTED FOR REPORTING ABUSE OF SPECIAL 
NEEDS CHILDREN 
 
YEREVAN 00000645  001.2 OF 002 
 
 
(U) Sensitive but unclassified.  Please protect accordingly. 
 
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SUMMARY 
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¶1. (SBU) The Prosecutor General's Office has pressed charges of 
"false crime reporting" against an environmental activist who went 
public with reports about instances of sexual and other abuse at a 
state-run boarding school for children with special needs.  The 
activist and local human rights monitors have denounced the charges 
as trumped-up retaliation for the activist's high-profile civic 
activism, and have called for an impartial investigation into the 
conditions at all state-run special needs schools.  END SUMMARY. 
 
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CIVIL SOCIETY ACTIVIST BLOWS WHISTLE ON ABUSE 
--------------------------------------------- 
 
¶2. (SBU) According to the civil society activist Mariam Sukhudian, 
from April-June 2008 she and a group of fellow youth activists 
served as volunteers in Nubarashen Special School Number 11 as part 
of a UNDP small grants project (NOTE: Nubarashen is one of Yerevan's 
12 administrative districts. END NOTE.) The volunteers renovated a 
computer room, taught various subjects and skills, recorded 
audio-books, etc.  Throughout their work and interaction with 
children the volunteers observed and heard about multiple problems 
and abuses at the school, including the  presence of children with 
without special needs; poor food quality; poor sanitary conditions; 
exploitation of children by the school's director and staff for 
their household chores; severe punishment and beatings; and several 
instances of sexual abuse by a teacher. 
 
¶3. (SBU) Suzan Simonian, a reporter for Armenian Public TV, covered 
the volunteers' findings and aired reports in November 2008 about 
the alleged situation in the school.  She included Sukhudian's video 
interview of a schoolgirl where she talked about sexual harassment 
of girls by one of the male teachers, as well as interviews with 
former students of the school who all backed up the allegations. 
Simonian also interviewed the school principal and the teacher in 
question, both of whom categorically denied the accusations. In the 
months following the airing of Simonian's report,  management at 
Public TV laid off a number of reporters -- reportedly due to the 
economic crisis --  and Suzan Simonian was one of those to lose her 
job. 
 
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ACTIVIST CHARGED FOR "FALSE CRIME REPORTING" 
-------------------------------------------- 
 
¶4. (SBU) According to Sukhudian, after Public TV aired the reports, 
police called her in, and during questioning she was told that no 
matter what the investigation reveals, she would be punished for 
voicing these allegations -- either for late reporting of a crime 
(if it did happen), or for false crime reporting if the 
investigation did not reveal any wrongdoing.  According to 
Sukhudian, the schoolgirl who first spoke out, who felt freer to 
talk since she had already graduated, subsequently changed her 
testimony under pressure.  Sukhudian said that she had recorded on 
her cell phone the girl telling Sukhudian that she would lie to the 
police about what happened because her mother was beating her. 
Sukhudian stated that in February 2009, the investigative body tried 
to charge the girl for libel (against the teacher) and then in 
August 2009 charged Sukhudian with false rime reporting, which is 
punishable with imprisonment up to 5 years.  (NOTE: This article of 
the Criminal Code falls under the June 19 amnesty enacted by 
parliament, and depending on the length of sentence imposed, if one 
is imposed at all, Sukhudian could possibly qualify for the amnesty. 
 END NOTE.) 
 
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PG'S OFFICE DENIES ALLEGATIONS OF ABUSE 
--------------------------------------- 
 
¶5. (SBU) On August 26 the Prosecutor General's Office released a 
statement declaring that subsequent to Public TV's reports they 
tasked the Erebuni Police Investigation Department to check the 
allegations of sexual abuse, which could not be substantiated; the 
forensic medical examination didn't confirm the report that one of 
the schoolchildren had been raped; and the students flatly denied 
the facts of abuse.  According to the Prosecutor General Office's 
statement, the girl interviewed by Simonian stated that she had 
given false information at the request of Sukhudian.  Law 
enforcement bodies subsequently claimed that Sukhudian did this in 
retaliation for the school administration not allowing her to misuse 
UNDP's small grants money.  The investigation is ongoing.  (NOTE: So 
far neither UNDP nor UNICEF has made any public statements on the 
 
YEREVAN 00000645  002.2 OF 002 
 
 
affair; however, a UDNP representative told PolFSN at a September 3 
meeting that they had not encountered any problems in the 
implementation of the small grants project administered by 
Sukhudian, but that they do not usually make statements on 
individual cases. END NOTE.) 
 
 
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NGOs, MEDIA COME TO ACTIVIST'S DEFENSE 
-------------------------------------- 
 
¶6. (SBU) Prominent local NGOs and various independent online blogs 
and media outlets subsequently launched a campaign in defense of 
Sukhudian, and several new media reports surfaced containing 
interviews of former students at the school who backed up the 
present allegations of abuse.  According to Sukhudian, the entire 
criminal case against her has been marred by procedural violations, 
with bias and intimidation against her and her fellow volunteers. 
In light of the heightened media attention to Sukhudian's plight, on 
September 14 the office of the Ombudsman announced that it had 
requested the case materials from law enforcement agencies. 
 
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COMMENT 
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¶7. (SBU) That this affair has exposed the lamentable conditions at 
special needs schools is positive; that the authorities have not 
taken kindly to civil society allegations of abuse at a state-run 
institution is not surprising.  As recent history has shown, the 
knee-jerk reaction of authorities to such criticism is to discredit 
the whistle-blowers and use the judiciary to intimidate and punish 
them so as to deter others from speaking out.  It remains to be seen 
whether that tactic will succeed in this case, in light of Public 
TV's own reporting on the alleged abuse and the subsequent surfacing 
of reports corroborating Sukhudian's initial allegations.  In the 
end, however, this constitutes another case of authorities taking an 
adversarial approach to any NGO's exposure of alleged human rights 
abuses. 
 
YOVANOVITCH