YEREVAN, AUGUST 14, ARMENPRESS. The Ministry of Justice of Armenia has developed a bill on amending the Criminal Code to criminalize “public calls of violence threatening the life of health of persons, publicly justifying violence which poses danger to persons’ life or health or promoting such violence”.

The ministry has presented the bill for public debates. In a news release, the Ministry of Justice said it studied international practice and standards on combating hate speech and the bill has been developed after PM Nikol Pashinyan tasked the Ministry of Justice on June 6 to discuss the appropriateness of criminalizing calls for violence.

The justice ministry said the approaches adopted in the bill are based on the instructions issued by international human rights organizations, namely the EU.

“The purpose of the bill is to adequately combat extreme manifestations of hate speech. Particularly, the criminal liability tool is necessary in those cases when the hate speech is directed at inciting violence against individual persons or a group of persons,” the Ministry of Justice said.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan