The first LGBTQI+ NGO in Armenia, We for Civil Equality, was established in 2006, and a second LGBTQI+ NGO, Public Information In Need of Knowledge (PINK), was established in 2008.

The Annual Review 2025 by ILGA-Europe shows that, in 2024, LGBTQI+ persons in Armenia have experienced considerable bias-motivated speech and violence, denial of services, and institutional failures. Examples mentioned in the review include the following:

• In July 2024, a café owner publicly outed and insulted a gay customer before denying him service. Despite reporting the case to law enforcement, the investigation failed to recognise the act as discriminatory.
• A trans asylum seeker was repeatedly denied job opportunities due to their gender expression, with some employers withdrawing job offers upon discovering the individual’s unchanged gender marker on official documents.
• A teenage girl was forced to undergo conversion therapy by a psychologist and neurologist in an effort to change her sexual orientation.

These experiences are corroborated by the report on the activities of the Human Rights Defender of Armenia (published in Armenian), in which the Ombudsman reports 57 cases of LGBTQI+ rights violations in 2024, including:

• Violations of the right to be free from torture, inhumane, and degrading treatment.
• Cases of sexual and physical violence.
• Psychological pressure, threats, and breaches of privacy.
• Violations of the right to respect for private and family life, among other cases.

Additionally, complaints were received regarding rights violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity in penitentiaries, by law enforcement officers, investigators, and medical personnel. 

Human Rights Watch’s World Report 2025, published in January 2025, includes an overview of Armenia’s human rights landscape. The report highlighted the fact that the criminal code in Armenia does not recognise bias based on sexual orientation or gender identity as an aggravating factor in hate crimes. The absence of comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation leaves LGBTQI+ persons with limited avenues for legal recourse.

On 1 May 2025, Armenia participated in the fourth cycle of the Universal Periodic Review under the UN Human Rights Council, presenting the country’s progress in the field of human rights protection. During the review, participants called on Armenia to adopt legislation that explicitly includes sexual orientation and gender identity as protected grounds. The Armenian delegation reaffirmed the country’s commitment to advancing human rights reforms based on inclusivity, transparency, and respect for international standards.

In addition, according to the Global Campus of Human Rights, almost 95 percent of the population of Armenia belongs to the Armenian Apostolic Church, which rejects homosexuality as immoral and has organised protest activities opposing any measures or steps aimed at protecting the rights of the LGBTQI+ community. 

Minasyan and Others v. Armenia, 7 January 2025

This case was brought forward by 14 Armenian LGBTQI+ rights activists and concerns the publication of newspaper articles in 2014 that contained discriminatory language and incitement to discrimination against the applicants due to their association with the LGBTQI+ community and/or their perceived sexual orientation or gender identity, and which included links to the applicants’ social media profiles. Subsequent articles by the same publication contained similar discriminatory and inciteful language. 

The applicants instituted civil proceedings against the newspaper, but the Armenian courts dismissed the case and ignored the allegations of discrimination. The applicants then appealed to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).

The ECtHR found that the Armenian courts had failed to protect the applicants against hate speech and to address the discriminatory nature of the hateful statements. The Court further ruled that Armenia lacked effective legal safeguards against hate speech, particularly targeting individuals based on their sexual orientation or activism. 

Armenia Grants Asylum to LGBTQI+ Chechen Man, 27 January 2024

Mr. Salman Mukaev, a citizen of the Russian Federation who is of Chechen nationality,  applied for asylum in Armenia as a refugee on the basis that he had been tortured and persecuted by law enforcement agencies in Chechnya through the initiation of a fictitious criminal case as a result of his sexual orientation. In 2022, the Migration Service in Armenia rejected Mr. Mukaev’s claim for asylum.  

In January 2024, the Administrative Court of the Republic of Armenia satisfied Mr. Mukaev’s claim against the Armenian Migration Service. In its judgment, the Court first stated that it is indisputable that the plaintiff cannot return because of a well-founded fear of being persecuted by the local authorities of Chechnya for belonging to a certain social group. The court also emphasised that the data presented by Mukayev regarding his sexual orientation on the one hand, and the situation in the Russian Federation and Chechnya on the other hand, prove that even if the criminal prosecution against the plaintiff is not related to his sexual orientation, the plaintiff’s freedom and personal immunity will be threatened.

Oganezova v. Armenia, 17 May 2022 

This case was brought forward by Amine ‘Tsomak’ Oganezova, co-owner and manager of a well-known LGBTQI+ club in Yerevan, Armenia. The case concerns an incident that occurred on 8 May 2012, in which an arson attack was carried out on the club by a group of men with neo-Nazi affiliations. These men were identified and charged. After the incident, Oganezova continued to be the target of ongoing intimidation, threats, harassment, and abuse due to her association with the LGBTQI+ community and her public criticism of Armenia’s human rights record, and the club continued to be vandalised with homophobic comments and neo-Nazi symbols. 

In the wake of the incident, politicians in Armenia publicly praised the arsonists and their admitted homophobic motives, and the perpetrators were ultimately bailed out. Courts in Armenia extended the arsonists’ lenient conditional sentences and, eventually, amnesty despite their admitted homophobic motive and ‘Fascist’ ideology and affiliation. Armenian police did nothing to stop the post-arson attackers, including online verbal aggressors, and allowed them to continue their attacks. Ultimately, Oganezova and members of her family were forced to leave Armenia and apply for asylum in Sweden on the basis of persecution due to sexual orientation.

Oganezova brought two applications to the ECtHR, which ultimately found there had been a violation of ECHR Article 3 (Prohibition of torture), taken in conjunction with Article 14 (Prohibition of discrimination), in a case of continued attacks on Oganezova. The ECtHR opined that the state did not fulfil its positive obligations regarding the protection of the applicant from homophobic attacks, especially in terms of criminal investigation and criminal punishment of the perpetrators. The ECtHR noted in particular the “absence of [an] effective domestic criminal-law mechanism for investigating discrimination complaints.”

This was Armenia’s first decided hate crime case, first hate speech case, and first case establishing failure to protect from discriminatory violence, as well as to investigate such violence. It is Armenia’s second case of established discrimination. 

A. M. v Ministry of Interior, 5 November 2006  

A. M., an Armenian national, claimed asylum in the Czech Republic on the basis that he had a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of his sexual orientation. The applicant had come out as a member of the LGBTQI+ community during his military service in Armenia, resulting in repeated mistreatment of the applicant by his fellow soldiers (including physical abuse and depriving the applicant of food). 

A. M.’s initial application was rejected by the Ministry of the Interior on 22 March 2025 on the basis that homosexuality is no longer a criminal offence in Armenia, and that his mistreatment was unlikely to re-occur as his military service was over. The Ministry of the Interior found that mere discrimination by the public is not tantamount to persecution. The regional court in Prague upheld the decision of the Ministry of the Interior on 30 September 2005. 

A. M. lodged a formal cassation complaint with the Supreme Administrative Court. Although the Supreme Administrative Court agreed that homosexuality was a relevant ground on which to claim asylum, it found that it is also necessary to assess the degree of hardship that is connected with the characteristic, and that mere social ostracism was not tantamount to persecution if it does not reach the level of psychological violence. The Supreme Administrative Court concluded that A. M. had not experienced such a level of hardship outside of his military service, and that, given his military service had ended, the persecution had ceased. The Supreme Administrative Court dismissed the case.