The National Assembly of Armenia approved the bill on granting amnesty proposed by president Sargsyan (98 votes for, 1 against and 3 votes abstained). As it was expected, the mentioned amnesty proposed to set 2000 prisoners free will not concern 18 political prisoners out of the 51 ones. Certainly the president’s representative in the parliament, justice minister Gevorg Danielyan did not accept the petition of the Heritage party MPs to enforce the amnesty and apply on all political prisoners without exception. Neither of the MPs, besides the MPs of Heritage party and several representatives of the ARF, managed to ask what were the humanistic principles and norms based on which only a part of the political prisoners were going to be released. They neither asked who would be responsible for the fact that those people had been kept in prisons for more than one year. They did not ask such questions because most of them voted for this bill not due to their humanistic ambitions but the fact that the bill was proposed by the president’s administration. By the way, the only MP to vote against the bill on amnesty is Heritage party member Zaruhi Postanjyan, who believes this is not a decision of amnesty but a political payback.
