A round table discussion entitled “How Armenian authorities treat lawyers” was organized at the “Yerevan” hotel yesterday. The participants were condemning the authorities, demanding them to stop pressuring lawyers and they demanded releasing lawyer Vahe Grigoryan from jail immediately. Let’s recall that Vahe Grigoryan was the lawyer for the residents who were being kicked out of their homes on Y. Buzand street and Vahe was sent to jail as a criminal. However, V. Grigoryan’s lawyers and the Buzand street residents have appealed to the court to reconsider the accusations and claim that Grigoryan is just being persecuted. The lawyer was sentenced to jail on October 7, 2005 and has been staying at the isolation cell of the National Security Service since December 30. According to Grigoryan’s lawyer Arthur Grigoryan, they have appealed to the European court and the case entitled “Vahe Grigoryan against the Republic of Armenia” has been taken into consideration. Armenia’s ombudsman Larisa Alaverdyan considers the authorities’ actions as political persecution.
“I have always avoided using force, however, if my job is considered to be “betrayal” or “showing our bad side to the world” and if the Human Rights institute is being persecuted, then we can consider this a political persecution. This says a lot about how immature our authorities are and how they refuse to keep ruling everyone,” says L. Alaverdyan.
During this time, nothing helped to discuss the issue of releasing V. Grigoryan from jail.
“This is due to the fact that the courts are totally under the control of the executive branch of government and the prosecutor’s office,” says lawyer Arthur Grigoryan. “What happened with Vahe Grigoryan shows that if you are a professional, you have to pay the price somehow. Vahe Grigoryan is paying the price for trying to make this country apply the laws,” says head of the National Minorities and Religions department of the Armenian Government Hranush Kharatyan. According to her, all the lawyers who would one day like to do as they please without being “told what to do” will find themselves in the same position as V. Grigoryan.
“After what happened to Vahe Grigoryan, no Armenian citizen should hope for legality in the country,” said H. Kharatyan.
The annual report on human rights, prepared by Armenia’s ombudsman L. Alaverdyan, will analyze the level of human rights defense in each field “in order to make it more subjective and address to the people”. The report also includes the issues concerning the violation of the citizen’s right to own property. L. Alaverdyan expects the NGOs to help her propagandize the report. According to L. Alaverdyan, the 2004 annual report “was a real bestseller”.
“We will also show the report on the Internet, however, we learned from last year that not everyone was able to see the report because there were only 500 copies. Since we have no hope that the government will help us, we rely on the NGOs to lend us a helping hand.”