The president of the Federation of International Defense of Human Rights (FIDH) Souhayr Belhassen had a number of meetings in Armenia, including with the president.
“I met the president of the country with a simple purpose; he had to listen to my message to set the political prisoners free, investigate the conditions of the death of people killed during the events of March 1, 2008, provide free speech and justice, as well as exclusion of any torture against imprisoned people. The goal of our meetings both with the president of the country and opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosyan was the release of political prisoners,” said Souhayr Belhassen to Radio Liberty, “The presence of political prisoners is indisputable; I have visited them in prisons and met with their families. I cannot say how many political prisoners, but there are.” The president of the FIDH also said that his decision to join the ANC and make a speech during their demonstration had the same goal too. “We are not a political party; we are an organization which protects human rights. Thus, our goal of participating in that demonstration was the release of the political prisoners. We thought it better to talk not to political powers or government but people. There were not parties only at the demonstration but citizens as well who were concerned of the situation with the political prisoners. We wanted to offer our support concerning this issue to those people,” said Belasen.
