Civil society against domestic violence in Armenia (open letter, call for action and latest video report)

I remember when relatively recently the Women's Resource Centre wanted to put posters in Yerevan to highlight the problem of domestic violence and indicate hotline for those affected to call, the Yerevan municipality refused to allow it by claiming there is no such problem in Armenia. Typical mentality. Let's pretend that we do not have such problem, let's not talk about it, otherwise it may affect our image... Instead of facing up the problem and developing effective means to tackle it. In the meantime, cases, like the one below, keep happening...
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Open Letter by Society Without Violence

Wednesday, 6 October 2010

Dear friends,

As you are already informed, on October 1, 2010 in Masis town a shocking murder was committed. A 20 year old Zaruhi Petrosyan was killed by her husband and mother in law as a result of torture and physical violence.

The link http://news.am/rus/news/33152.html and video materials http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVUBPD2gdQY provided by News.am are the vivid evidence of the inhuman tortures and treatment that Zaruhi Petrosyan underwent during her life-time, violence which brought to the death of 20 year old young woman.

Unfortunately, the cases of physical violence are not rare in our reality, and in some context the indifference of the society and unfair attitude towards violence victims can lead to such irreversible losses.

As a women’s rights NGO members, we call Human Rights organizations, activists, interested people, mass-media and international organizations to be observant, to highlight this case by every possible way of dissemination, to provide the publicity and transparency of the case investigation and the trial for reaching the fair judgment of 20 year-old woman’s murderers.

Otherwise the stereotypes, that such crimes are inter-family issues, that such cases do not deserve to be in the public’s and law enforcement bodies’ attention will have more and profound roots in our society.

With our silence we will allow such crimes to be justified and guilty people to avoid the punishment determined by law. In other words, by our silence we will have more innocent victims.

If you are interested in the participation of the discussion on this case, please do not hesitate to contact by the following e-mail: arutshyan@yahoo.com

Regards,

Society Without Violence
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Women's Resource Centre calls for 'Time for action' against domestic violence in Armenia, and asks interested people to join the cause by calling the centre on 51 91 68 (local phone number).
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According to the latest news, Zaruhi's husband is detained and charged with 'causing severe bodily harm in a cruel manner'.