Wednesday, April 1 2020 11:49

ArmInfo.Armenian President Armen Sargsyan signed the amendments to the scandalous laws "On the legal regime of emergency" and "On electronic communication" adopted in the second and final reading by the Armenian parliament. ArmInfo was informed about this by the RA President's press service.

"Although the laws provide for significant restrictions on human  rights, the president signed them, given that these restrictions  should be applied by the government as an exceptional measure and  exclusively during a state of emergency. Based on this, the main  condition for the application of laws and the sole purpose should be  to save human life and preserve public health: Government must be  extremely consistent in enforcing these restrictions, avoiding undue  interference with human rights and freedoms enshrined in the  Constitution, "the statement said on the president's website.

Note that on the eve of the parliament, in the second and final  reading, it adopted amendments to two scandalous laws "On the legal  regime of emergency" and "On electronic communication." From the  stands of the Parliament, RA Minister of Justice Rustam Badasyan,  presenting the rationale for the adoption of the amendments, repeated  the theses previously voiced on the submitted documents. In  particular, he noted that in a state of emergency it is proposed to  track the movements of citizens, including using smartphones. The  head of the Ministry of Justice emphasized that this intervention  will be limited by the time of the emergency, and the data will be  transmitted only to the responsible authorities. For illegal  disclosure of personal information of citizens, liability is  provided, up to criminal. It is proposed to use electronic programs  in order to establish the location of the subscriber and the data on  the numbers with which he spoke (but not the content of telephone  conversations). It is proposed to collect data on the health status  of subscribers, including data constituting a medical secret. "This  data will be used only to understand whether a person complies with  the regime of isolation and self-isolation. For this, only electronic  applications authorized by the state will be used," Badasyan added.  These restrictions, according to the minister, relate exclusively to  the state of emergency declared during the pandemic, and after its  completion there will be no restrictions. Moreover, as the minister  assured, no additional information about citizens is being collected,  simply the data available from the operators are accumulated and  processed in a single database to combat the spread of the epidemic.  And upon completion of the emergency, all data must be destroyed  within a month. "This does not imply revealing the content of calls,  only the fact of the call and its location are established," the  minister said. Explaining why this is necessary, the minister gave an  example. Suppose an infected citizen was actively in contact with 10  people, five of whom live in one place. It turns out that if they  were in the same area, there is a high risk of infection and actions  will be taken, including to isolate them. And the other five, who  were in other places and also received calls from him, are no longer  interesting and there is no need for additional actions. If someone  is not in the risk zone, then his data cannot be collected, it will  be criminally punishable. He also emphasized that the law excluded  the possibility of receiving data on the call completion dates,  specified the possibilities and procedure for receiving data from  medical institutions.

Note that human rights organizations have already criticized the  above amendments, noting that this will inflict a serious blow on  human rights in the country. The amendments were not supported by the  opposition parliamentary forces, which expressed the conviction that  the virus could be fought without violating human rights.