The court of Yerevan has made a decision to continue the court trial of seven people arrested as a result of March 1 events. The court session will take place on December 19, at 12 o’clock, at the general jurisdiction court of Shengavit community. The court session will be open. The mentioned people are former foreign affairs minister Alexander Arzumanyan, MP Myasnik Malkhasyan, Sasun Mikayelyan, Hakob Hakobyan, former mayor of Abovyan Hakob Hakobyan, ANM member Suren Surenyants and Shant Harutyunyan. The judge, Mnatsakan Martirosyan has read 12,000 pages consisting of 41 chapters during one month and has set a date for court trial. Certainly it is nonsense to look for any legal grounds or justifications for this decision and it is clear that the authorities want to change the situation with political detainees till the PACE session in January. As the mentioned seven people will never agree to sign a petition to release them, the government has no way but to proceed a court trial to show to the PACE that the trial is in process and they can’t intervene. Definitely every court session will be a reason for spontaneous demonstrations during all this period. It is not excluded that the mentioned court sessions may be a reason for re-starting the interrupted national movement.
By the way, yesterday was the international day of human rights protection.