The main activity of the Helsinki Association is the monitoring of the situation related to fundamental rights and freedoms of citizens. The organisation provides free legal and advocate services, and files applications to the European Court of Human Rights. A recent monitoring of the prison system and psychiatric hospitals was conducted by the organisation. Special attention is paid to the victims of torture. During an investigation the organisation's employees represent the interests of the injured party acting as experts. Organisation workers are under pressure from the authorities and are often written about negatively in the press. Mikael Danielyan has been physically attacked as a result of his work for human rights.

"On March 30 about 9:00 am on the way home from a stroll I was attacked and beaten. The assailants, 4 heavily built persons, blocked me from both sides of a passage, drove me to the ground and knocked me about for 10 minutes and then fled. I was delivered to hospital in a serious condition. Though law-enforcement agencies were informed right after the incident, they paid the first visit to me only at 2:00 pm that is 5 hours after the incident. As regards the forensic-medical examination, I should say that the forensic medical expert visited me at my home 16 days after the attack, which made his visit quite useless.

On the first day doctors informed my relatives that brain concussion was possible and for the first two days they were of that opinion. On the third day they informed them that the only health problem with me is blood pressure.

On the day of the attack two pro-government newspapers published articles criticising me and accusing me of anti-state activities. All this was linked to my interview given to the Azeri newspaper “Echo” published on March 26. The “Golos Armenii” Russian-speaking Armenian newspaper published as its lead story an article entitled “WHAT SHALLWE CALL IT? Tophik, Anar and Mika build democracy.” The “Azg” newspaper published an article named “Mikael Danielyan warns the Azeri people that Kocharyan may launch a war”. But in my opinion the interview to the “Echo” is merely an excuse to punish me.

The main reason is my human rights activities, which no doubt irritate the authorities, particularly given that there are many references to our organisation in the report of the US State Department for the year of 2003. The annual report on human rights we prepared for the International Helsinki Federation was distributed among many embassies and international organisations. Another possible reason is that one of these days opposition actions are to be launched aimed at forcing the president to resign. So the authorities are ready to resort to extreme steps like arbitrary arrests, unlawfulness by law-enforcement agencies etc. According to local experts, one of the only fast and reliable sources of information for Western organisations is me and our organisation. That is, the aim of the attack was to remove me temporarily from my active work, which was achieved.

In recent times our organisation managed to prevent further unlawful activities by lawenforcement agencies in 2 or 3 cases. I and our organisation consider that they will be resumed while I recover. In general, it may be deemed that for a long time we have been seriously annoying the anti-democratic authorities of Armenia with our activities and appearances.

Despite the fact that on March 30 the police were informed about the incident, it somehow failed to be included in the police records for the day. On March 31 R. Kocharyan, President of Armenia, placed my case under the personal control of the Prosecutor General. On April 1 I was informed that a criminal action was initiated under Article 118 (beatings), which established responsibility in the form of 2 months arrest. By this the authorities from the outset excluded the possibility that this was an act of intimidation. It should be noted separately that almost no local human rights organisation either displayed its support toward me or make any condemnatory statement in the wake of the attack. Meanwhile, this has been done by such international human rights organisations and prominent personalities, as Human RightsWatch, the International Helsinki Federation, the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, and Lord Russel-Johnston. The PACE also referred to this incident in its resolution 1374 which called on the Armenian authorities to conduct an effective investigation into the case."