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Nonpartisan MP Taguhi Tovmasyan has again sent letters to her international colleagues and several international organizations regarding the case of Hovik Aghazaryan, an MP who was expelled from Armenia's ruling Civil Contract party for "leaking confidential information" to media. The MP's full statement is provided below.

"As a representative of the Armenian parliament working on human rights protection, I consider it my duty to address the incident involving MP Hovik Aghazaryan.

Despite having extreme human, ideological, and political differences with this particular MP, I believe that the publicizing of personal phone conversations and correspondences, and providing political team members the opportunity to familiarize themselves with these, is highly problematic and unacceptable from the standpoint of personal data protection. This leak violates national legislation and several international legal norms:

1. Universal Declaration of Human Rights - 1948
2. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights - 1966
3. European Convention on Human Rights - 1950
4. General Data Protection Regulation - 2016

Articles 33 and 34 of the Constitution of Armenia clearly define the right to the privacy of correspondence, telephone conversations, and other forms of communication.

What is even more unacceptable is that a “revelation” regarding the sexual orientation of the MP was published on a website connected to Taron Chakhoyan, the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Prime Minister, using the same phone information.

The incident involving Aghazaryan not only highlights the violation of his personal data protection rights, but also gives the impression that a targeted campaign has been launched against the MP, directed from the government apparatus.

I expect appropriate responses from my international colleagues and organizations, as in the past, even minor violations of rights were condemned by foreign diplomats through video messages. However, this time there seems to be a certain silence."