Human Rights Defender Arman Tatoyan has declared that some high-ranking officials in Armenia are engaged in criminal behavior and are overtly inciting illegal activity against the Defender.

Tatoyan noted that the Deputy Chief of the Prime Minister's Staff Taron Chakhoyan and lawmaker Vahagn Aleksanyan from the ruling faction have "demanded" in openly abusive posts that the Ombudsman start proceedings against a person who a few days earlier took to social media to insult the chairman of one of the parliament's standing committees, also representing the ruling faction, with sexual slurs. The Ombudsman said, however, that the person has no position or official status, which means Chakhoyan and Aleksanyan expect the HRD to take actions that are prohibited by law and have nothing to do with the scope of authority of the Ombudsman.

The posts contain numerous comments insulting the Ombudsman and spreading hate speech, as well as calls for the dismissal of Tatoyan from the post after the snap parliamentary elections on June 20.

"These officials, in fact, do not realize that they are engaged in criminal behavior. They do not understand that their criminogenic acts, especially in the pre-election period, increase tensions and aggression among the society," Tatoyan said.

The Ombudsman also said the social media posts in question will be sent to the the OSCE / ODIHR observation mission, to the PACE co-rapporteurs, to a number of other international organizations and officials, as well as to Armenia's General Prosecutor's Office.