Prisoners at the prison always celebrate the New Year with longing and sadness. The prisoners all have the hope that this year will be the last year that they celebrate the New Year in prison. According to vice director of the “Abovyan” prison, colonel of justice Rostom Martirosyan, at the present there are 125 minors and women imprisoned who suffer the consequences of their committed crimes. The vice-director claims that the main crime committed by a majority of minors is theft and the majority of women commit murder and foul-play. As a matter of fact, the oldest prisoner at the “Abovyan” prison is a 70-year old grandmother. Some pregnant women are also registered at the prison.
We visited a woman who had been sentenced to murder after her marriage and gave birth at the prison. Anna Sahakyan is 25 years old. She has been in prison for the past 5 years. Anna’s parents have abandoned her when she was a child and she has lived in an orphanage for a while. A Russian woman adopted her and Anna has lived with that woman in Yerevan for many years. When Anna was an adolescent, she discovered that she has been an orphan and that that woman was her step-mother. This was very hard for her and she turned very cruel towards her real mom. Debates began between mother and daughter. During that time, Anna got married to a guy from Sisian, however, she continued to have feelings of hate towards her mother. Anna’s mother was deeply hurt by the behavior of her daughter and decided to leave the house by will not to Anna, but to her nephew. Anna and her husband were shocked when they heard about this decision. They tried to do something against that decision since the process of preparing documents for the will of Anna’s mother’s house was coming to an end. Anna and her husband killed Anna’s step-mother so that the house could legally be given to Anna by the will. Anna was sentenced to nine years in prison, while the husband was sentenced to 14. “My case is worse, but it happens to everybody. Everyone commits errors. My husband is at the prison in Kosh. We keep in touch by letters and my mother-in-law comes to visit. She takes my child to see her father from time to time. My mother-in-law wants to take my child with her to live freely, but I can’t live without her,” says Anna. After she gets out of prison, Anna and her child will go to live with her mother-in-law in Sisyan. Anna was 6 months pregnant when she came to the prison and gave birth there. Five-year old Susanna gets to be with her grandmother often; however, when she comes back to her mother’s prison cell she becomes violent and capricious. Susanna has a hard time adjusting to the prison conditions again and she behaves like a mischievous child. “She was small when my mother-in-law took her for 6 months. When she came back, it was very hard for her. She was used to being free and could not adapt to the prison conditions,” says the mother. “She kept on wanting to get out. I couldn’t keep her in the cell; she kept on getting frustrated. A year ago she thought that this was her home; now she knows where we are but what she doesn’t know is why we’re here.” I ask Susan-“Do you know where you are right now?” She says-“In the cell”. “What is a cell?” She says-“A cell is…a cell is a very good cell”. I ask-“Why is the cell good?” She says-“When I freeze to death, I go and sit next to the heaters, get warm-that is a good cell. See, I am knitting clothes for Mariam and Kiso. She was in the cell. She is a big kid. I have friends that were here in the summer-one of them was Gayushik and the other was Lilit. Now they are at home. When we get out of here, I will grow up and my mom will buy me make-up.” Susan’s mom tries not to think about freedom that much because it becomes hard for her to wait.
The people that don’t have back-up get sentenced
The article entitled “The people that don’t have back-up get sentenced” published in our previous edition was about Armen Sargsyan, who has been sentenced to 2 years and 6 month imprisonment and we had published a wrong photograph of him in the newspaper. “168 hours” asks for forgiveness from the readers, as well as the boys in the photograph for the mistake because the boys in the photograph were not supposed to be in the newspaper. The real Armen Sargsyan from the city of Berd in the Tavush Marz is this boy. He has been in the “Abovyan” prison’s isolation cell for more than a week. Armen’s parents are sick in bed. He has two younger brothers and the family lives poorly. In 2004, Armen stole a neighbor’s aluminum pan at an aluminum scrap collection center and received 2000 drams to feed his family. The neighbor had called the police and although Armen had returned the pan to the neighbor, however, Judge Zoya Zakiyan from the first instance court of Tavush Marz sentenced Armen to a 2 year conditional imprisonment and imposed a 20,000 dram fee. Mrs. Zakiyan called Armen to court frequently and demanded that he pay the fine otherwise, he would “make him sit” in jail. But the boy was not able to pay the fine. They threatened the boy so much that he committed theft once again so that he could pay off the fine. He stole another aluminum pan. Armen has been sentenced to 2 years and six months imprisonment and is currently at the isolation cell. His sick parents are not able to visit him and know nothing of Armen. Armen is the only one that works in the family and says that his family will not survive without his help. Armen had gotten admitted into a school so that he could learn how to drive a tractor and become a tractor driver; at the same time he was taking on the burden of providing his family with money for food.
“They kept me at the prison for three days. I had no news from my family. My parents are ill and my brothers are young. They used to give me 450 drams worth of food. I like sweets and I wanted cookies,” says Armen. “Then they took me to Abovyan and it has been 6 days that I am here.” Armen’s family does not have any information about their son who is at the isolation cell for the past six days. The parents do not know where or how their son Armen is. All Armen thinks about are his parents and brothers. There may be severe consequences if he doesn’t take care of his family.
We often hear how the son of a deputy is not brought to justice for a crime that he has committed by one call made by his father. As for boys like Armen, who don’t have rich fathers or deputies as parents, spend years in prison for stealing something like a 2000 dram aluminum pan just so they can make ends meet.