Yesterday The Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) launched a key debate on the tense political situation in Armenia on the agenda of its summer session which began in Strasbourg. The debate will take place until June 27 under the so-called “urgent procedure” that allows for the discussion of issues that are not on the draft agenda drawn up by the PACE leadership ahead of a quarterly assembly session. The procedure was invoked at the request of Serhiy Holovaty, chairman of a PACE committee monitoring the fulfillment of Armenia’s membership commitments to the Council of Europe. At the beginning of the session Lluis Maria de Puig, the PACE president stated that the Bureau of the Assembly made a decision to conduct an extraordinary discussion on the “activity of democratic institutes” in Armenia and Turkey. There were some objections about including Turkey in the agenda of discussion. As of the Armenian case there were no objections even on part of the Armenian delegation and the issue was included in the agenda without voting. Thus, the discussion of the issue will take place on June 25 evening, during which the PACE will decide whether the credo of Armenia’s membership to the PACE will be in doubt or not. Reminder: During the PACE session in April it was decided that if Armenia doesn’t comply with the requirements of the resolution 1609 then Armenia will be deprived of the voting right in the PACE. The rapporteurs, Britain’s former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott and French parliamentarian Georges Colombier, visited Yerevan last week to assess government steps stemming from the PACE resolution. Holovaty described those steps as “insufficient” in a letter to Lluis Maria de Puig, the PACE president, late last week. In a separate draft resolution submitted to the PACE, the Monitoring Committee deplored the Armenian government’s failure to release all opposition members “seemingly detained on artificial and politically motivated charges.” It called for the release of those detainees who were only charged with seeking to “usurp power” in the wake of the February 19 election. The proposed new resolution also condemns court verdicts against other opposition activists that are “based solely on a single police testimony.” Reminder: The resolution in question demanded that the Armenian authorities release all opposition members arrested on “seemingly artificial and politically motivated charges” following last February’s disputed presidential election. It also called for the scrapping of serious restrictions on freedom of assembly and the launch of an independent inquiry into the deadly post-election clashes between opposition protesters and security forces. The PACE warned that failure to take these measures could lead to the suspension of the voting rights of its four Armenian members. In a separate draft resolution submitted to the PACE, the Monitoring Committee deplored the Armenian government’s failure to release all opposition members “seemingly detained on artificial and politically motivated charges.” It called for the release of those detainees who were only charged with seeking to “usurp power” in the wake of the February 19 election. The proposed new resolution also condemns court verdicts against other opposition activists that are “based solely on a single police testimony.” The resolution in question demanded that the Armenian authorities release all opposition members arrested on “seemingly artificial and politically motivated charges” following last February’s disputed presidential election. It also called for the scrapping of serious restrictions on freedom of assembly and the launch of an independent inquiry into the deadly post-election clashes between opposition protesters and security forces. The PACE warned that failure to take these measures could lead to the suspension of the voting rights of its four Armenian members. We asked the member of the Armenian delegation Avet Adonts from the Prosperous Armenia faction why they hadn’t even pretended to try to object the involvement of the Armenian issue in the agenda and whether the reason was that the Armenian delegation knew that the objection wouldn’t be taken into account anyway. “Why should we do that? Why not let the issue of Armenia be discussed whenever wished. We don’t need to make any noise about that and thus raise our objections? I am personally interested to hear what is going on, what approaches exist, etc. I think everyone understands that not much could be done within two months and that we have so far mostly lunched the process successfully. The rest is ahead. Therefore, we would like to hear their opinion of the work done so far,” answered Adonts. In his opinion the fact that the Armenian delegation didn’t make any objections will launch the discussion in a fair and sincere environment. “The opposition on the other hand is trying to dramatize the situation in Armenia and thus try to show everything in dark colors. I think the PACE will also discuss the behavior of the opposition,” he said. Let us remember that three days ago on June 20 rally Ter-Petrosyan said the following, “If before the PACE session Serzh Sargsyan releases all the political prisoners of Armenia without exception I agree to request the PACE not to apply the sanctions against Armenia, which it threatened to do in the event if Armenia doesn’t comply with the requirements.” As a response to this Adonts said, “I have only one answer to this. If they doubt or claim that there are political prisoners in Armenia let the PACE send international experts to examine each case in a detailed way. They did the same thing in Azerbaijan. If someone, who is in politics and is currently imprisoned, doesn’t mean that he is there for political views. It means that these things shouldn’t be confused.” How is the PACE delegation going to convince the PACE that the imprisoned ones are not political prisoners? “We will describe the situation and if they have concerns we will offer them to send their experts and assess the actual situation. I am so confident of this that I don’t see any problem,” said Adonts.
Strasbourg-Yerevan