Yerevan /Mediamax/. Armenian Ombudsman Arman Tatoyan has urged to stops the attempts of dividing the society into “newcomers” and “formers”.

“It is especially dangerous when the phenomenon is manifested by public figures, and in a number of cases human rights defenders,” the Ombudsman stated.

“We should eradicate the tendency of dividing the society into groups. This phenomenon is detrimental to the whole system of human rights protection. It can lead to deeply negative consequences, which will require long-term efforts to eliminate,” Arman Tatoyan added.

“The monitoring of public posts and comments of users of social media, conducted by the Ombudsman’s staff, has registered significant increase in cases of hate speech and insults over the last several days.

The observation shows that users of social media express insults, hate speech and even calls for violence under the posts criticizing “either side” especially the executive branch of the government. This also relates to posts simply containing dissent. The detailed observation recorded that the comments are often done without knowledge of the content of the posts, based on the headlines and the author only. Moreover, evidently fake accounts, the number of which has significantly increased, are the most active participants when it comes to expressing aggression. The number of similar comments towards members of the Armenian National Assembly has especially advanced over the past few days, which is very concerning from the point of the MPs’ role and authority in the society,” Armenian Ombudsman said.