Two weeks ago the ombudsman of Armenia left for the United States to participate in the congress of the Armenian lawyers, where he met with officials representing the Human Rights Watch and the Armenian Assembly. Later Armen Harutyunyan left for Strasbourg to meet with the OSCE human rights assignee, the head of the AGO group and other officials. During these meetings in the U.S. and Strasbourg they discussed issues concerning the situation in Armenia. Concerning these visits Armen Harutyunyan says that the meetings were mainly targeted at two things – releasing the detainees and establishing a commission to investigate the events of March 1.
– I tried to explain the situation and the actions that had been taken here because some actions had already been taken and an ad hoc commission had been established under the president’s supervision to work on the recommendations developed by PACE. All the organizations that I met with, including the Human Rights Watch, addressed two issues. First, they want us to free the detainees. They view this issue in two contexts: they think that the period of 2,5 months was sufficient for the investigation body to determine the level of their guilt, and secondly they say that there are such people among those detainees who hardly may have committed any crimes. Especially they were speaking of people such as Alexander Arzumanyan, Ararat Zurabyan, etc. It means that they are showing that they have concerns and suspicions as well. They believe setting them free will be the best solution both from the point of view of human rights and as an initial step and demonstration of a good faith to make the environment more constructive and create a ground for possible dialog between the opposition and the government. By the way, the legal organizations of both Strasbourg and the U.S. were very critical to this issue. I can also say that these two issues are very actual inside the country as well and it doesn’t mean that only the others care about those issues. The second thing that we think is very important is launching an independent body in charge of investigating the events of March 1. Besides the human rights side of this issue, they also think that if this body is independent, it may create a ground for future dialog as well. They think that this body should be established in a manner to enable both the parliamentary opposition and the opposition groups out of the parliament be involved in its work, otherwise they will not trust that commission if they see that it is not real. If it is not real, the international institutions will not provide with experts. As for the law on organizing assemblies, marches, rallies and demonstrations, we discussed that issue with the head of the Venice commission and they said that generally they positively estimated those amendments. These issues were discussed there very seriously, and as a rule they always addressed the above mentioned two issues. They were addressing those two issues, then discussing the other ones.
– The parliament discussed the amendments to the law on demonstrations yesterday. Is there any guarantee that in case of new rallies that law will not be amended and there will not be limitations again? What may the government do if the opposition organizes rallies in participation with thousands of people again? What may the opposition do if they are not allowed to hold such rallies by reasoning that “the government is trying to prevent possible clashes”?
– This thing is out of the frames of the legislation. It is more an issue of political culture. If there is a political will of constructive dialog with the opposition, there cannot be such problems, but if there is no political will, always there is a possibility of conflict. Simply they should understand that the human rights, as highest value, should be the consensus to be agreed upon by everyone. Maybe this is the reason why the international organizations say that releasing the detainees and launching an independent investigation commission will be steps by the government, which will show that they have constructive mood and political will. In such case it will be difficult to give a non-constructive answer to a constructive step. I think that we don’t have any other alternative to constructive dialog. Neither uncompromising policy nor permanent democracy of rallies can have positive results. Even we discuss issues and we don’t agree with each other, it means that it is an attempt of dialog too. However, there are some conditions for that purpose which also are defined in the PACE resolution. Those conditions concern releasing political prisoners and establishing an independent commission.
– Do you exclude the possibility that this process of restricting the law and then amending it based on the Venice commission’s demand may continue?
– I believe that if one of the parties makes constructive steps, the society will not accept any non-constructive steps by the other party and will not become a problem in the society. What I am saying is that it is very difficult to make non-constructive steps against constructive ones. I believe that if the government does that, i.e. sets the prisoners free and does the other things, the answer will not be negative.
– Heritage party has presented a draft of recommendations to the government, which includes a recommendation that one of the vice-speaker’s positions, the positions of the heads of four commissions out of the nine standing commissions and also five commission deputy heads should be assigned to the parliamentary opposition. The mentioned draft also suggests to adopt a law on opposition. What do the European institutions think about this?
– They have discussed issues concerning this suggestion specifically. We have talked only about the existing situation and issues to be addressed. We haven’t discussed the suggestions of different political powers and their arguments. Yes, we have talked about clarifying and signifying the role of the opposition because if we are speaking of counterbalances, first of all it concerns the political system, i.e. the relationship between the opposition and the government, and then the other branches of the power. If there is no counter-balance there and if it is one-centered system, the other branches of the power are becoming non-effective. We can also see that some representatives of the government agree with the fact that the role of the opposition should be increased, which is in the interests of the state. It means that there is a platform, which can serve for discussing technical issues to be agreed. Such issues should be discussed and some of them may be agreed and some may not. By the way, only in case of providing counterbalancing mechanisms it will be possible to speak of human rights protection. If such system doesn’t exist, it doesn’t matter whether the officials are good or no, even if they are the best ones there will be problems with human rights protection. It means that it is a conceptual issue and needs to be discussed. If you ask me about that suggestion I will say that it is worth giving one of the vice-speakers’ positions to the opposition. This issue is subject to political negotiations and the most important thing is that both the sides are accepting the fact that the role of the opposition should be increased.
– What is your impression from your meetings in Strasbourg? Will Armenia be deprived of its voting right as announced during the PACE April session?
– Personally the head of the AGO group told me that if the situation stays the same and the detainees are not set free, Armenia may appear in the list of countries where there are political prisoners. Now you can decide yourself whether the danger is big or no. A representative of the Armenian delegation was with me too and I think that the authorities should know this too. They told us a very concrete thing. After those meetings I really understood that the danger is really big. It is what I think. However, the reason why those actions should be taken is not the fact whether that danger is big or no. We are not able to consolidate this small nation. You can always be in conflict or be opposition, but not enemies. How will we address issues with the international institutions in the future? This is the most important thing to think about. Everyone is responsible for this. We always say that it is up to the government, but the political field consists both of the government and the opposition, and they are elements of one joint system. Neither of the parties can win completely. Either we will lose or we will go out of this difficult situation and will develop together. There are different opinions about my report. Some people say it is good, others say it is bad, it doesn’t matter, let them think it is not good, it is not a problem. However, we have created a topic of public discussion, which is positive though.
– The authorities assure that they have undertaken actions to do the recommendations of the resolution but those actions don’t include the mentioned two issues you said. In fact it means that there are no significant changes.
– Yes, they say these two issues are the most important ones. For example, the human rights assignee said that only one of his eight recommendations had been done, which concerned raising the state of emergency, and the other seven recommendations were still pending. They think all the recommendations are important, but say that the mentioned two ones are more important because they think that those can be estimated as positive steps and result in positive change of the environment. Besides that, after releasing the detainees and establishing an independent commission they will show that their approach to those people is totally different and objective.
– Do you know what the authorities think about the recommendation of the European institutions to release the detainees?
– No, I don’t know. But I am sure that the issue is very critical.
– Do you think that the government has sufficient political will to set the detainees free without being afraid that it may be viewed as a loss?
– I think that such way of thinking is characteristic to feudalism. We should speak of flexible and non-flexible government. I think that the incumbent government is very flexible and I believe that they will do those steps. I want to believe that they will do constructive steps.
– In answer to your extraordinary report, where you asked about the reasons why the head of the state protection service Grigori Sargsyan participated in the events of March 1 in the Liberty square, the state protection services (SPS) announced that the mentioned operation was not carried out by the SPS and it was not coordinated by Grisha Sarkisyan, thus you had to ask them before publishing such information. What do you think about this?
– I think it is normal. First, the ombudsman is reflecting the questions in the society, which are the reasons of this tense environment. It is very good that the answer was announced publicly because it means that there is a public process already. It is another issue whether they agree with my point or no, or whether I do with their point or no. The ombudsman’s mandate is that he is opposition first of all for the government and issues are addressed from this point of view. As for them, they are answering to such questions openly and publicly. There were other questions, which answers did not satisfy me. However, I am for public dialog which was a new thing after those events. It was an official report, which was followed by their official answer, and the society can make its opinion basing on those two announcements. It is democracy and democracy does not mean that one of the parties is always right and the other one is always wrong. I did my job and they did their job, as a result of which Levon Ter-Petrosyan felt more protected and I am happy for that.