On August 20, 2023, Adriana, a trans woman, was killed in her apartment in Yerevan. To honor Adriana’s memory, on the next day, August 21, from 8:00 p.m., in the area of Komitas Park in Yerevan, a candlelight vigil was organized by Right Side Human Rights Defender NGO, which was attended by the head of the organization, Adriana’s mother, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to the Republic of Armenia, Nico Schermers, Head of the Political and Press Section of the British Embassy, Chris Perkins, representatives of various organizations, and around 40 LGBTIQ community members and supporters. During the candlelight vigil, there was an attack by 4 young people who had bottles filled with sand and eggs in their hands, started hitting the gathered people with them, cursing, making threats, causing alarm and panic, and then fled. As a result of the attack, several members of the LGBTIQ community were injured.

The incident was reported to the police, where a criminal case was initiated under Article 195, Part 2, Clauses 5 and 10 of the RA Criminal Code: Hitting or committing other violent acts which were committed with the motive of hatred, intolerance or enmity caused by racial, national, ethnic or social origin, religion, political or other views or other circumstances of a personal or social nature. However, despite the initiated criminal case, during the past months, no investigation was carried out by the investigative body, and only in April 2024, Lilit Martirosyan, the president of Right Side Human Rights Defender NGO, was invited for questioning and recognized as a victim.

We will continue to follow the course of this, as well as other criminal cases involving Trans and LGBIQ persons, consistently documenting and collecting cases of discrimination, and we urge the RA Police to conduct a proper investigation and punish the guilty to the full extent of the law.

May 3, 2024 Armenia, Yerevan