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“Will,” an NGO for the "Protection of Armenian Values", has organized a petition against the ratification of the Istanbul Convention by the Armenian Government, claiming that the Convention “opens up opportunities for the propaganda and legitimization of perversion and perverts.” 
Representatives of the group have been collecting signatures at several locations in Yerevan for a week now, and are looking to expand to other cities, including Gyumri and Vanadzor, to prevent the “sinister and apocalyptic dangers of the Convention.”
The petition has since been signed by several parliamentarians, including Prosperous Armenia Faction secretary Arman Abovyan, PA MP Artyom Tsarukyan, and ruling My Step Alliance MP Sofya Hovsepyan. A former Armenian PM Khosrov Harutyunyan has also joined the petition.
In an interview with a local news portal, a “Will” member claims that the IC actually aims to “destroy our national values, religion and traditions [...] by legitimizing a ‘third gender’ in Armenia.”
Another anti-LGBT+ initiative, Stop G-7 in Armenia, have started their own hate campaign to discredit the IC & those who support its ratification. Human rights activists, ministers & civil society actors are portrayed by the group as “defenders of perversion and immorality.”
Over the past months, “Will” and its leader Vahagn Chakhalyan have been actively organizing various campaigns to discredit local rights defenders and groups, presenting their activities as “immoral and destructive for national and family values.”
In May, “Will” disrupted the presentation of a sex-ed book held by the local Sexual Assault Crisis Center, and then threw eggs at the organizers while they were leaving the venue. The book, according to them, was promoting immorality among children.
One month prior, Chakhalyan and his group started a hate campaign against prominent human rights defender Lara Aharonyan, after the latter made a speech on March 8 about the rights of women, including single mothers, lesbian, trans and bisexual women.
“Lara's statement is not only sacrilege, but classic betrayal,” “You will get the political response to your statement tomorrow and beyond. You won’t get away with this,” Chakhalyan said in some of his posts.
Chakhalyan also urged others to “return Aharonyan to reality and remind her that this is Armenia with the help of rotten eggs and trenchwater.”
We will continue monitoring the activities of the aforementioned groups.
