The head of the Armenian Helsinki Committee Avetik Ishkhanyan believes that the co-reporters will mainly focus on the issue of releasing political prisoners during the PACE monitoring commission session on September 11. However he says that it is hard to say what the reaction of the Armenian government and co-reporters will be.
Even during the PACE session in June the Armenian delegation alleged that the given time was not enough for fulfilling the requirements of the resolution 1609. In consideration of the Armenian delegation’s requirements the PACE gave more three months to fulfill the requirements of a consecutive resolution 1620. They also warned that it was the deadline and if Armenia failed, they would impose penalties, including the possibility of excluding from the PACE. Few days have remained but the Armenian government has not fulfilled the mentioned requirements yet. The main requirement that has not been done is the requirement on releasing political prisoners resulted from the events of March 1. In answer to our question whether the government of Armenia may again allege that the time allocated for implementing the requirements was not enough the head of Helsinki committee Avetik Ishkhanyan said: “They were given three months to fulfill several requirements of the resolution 1609. But I think they’d be better to present three main points for those three months, which should concern releasing the political prisoners, amending the law on rallies and demonstrations and establishing a commission in charge of investigating the events of March 1. The other requirements should have been long-term because if too many requirements are set, it is natural that all of them cannot be done within a short period of time.” Avetik Ishkhanyan believes that if the government could ask for more time due to such reasoning in June now they cannot because the resolution 1609 strictly sets the essence of fulfilling those three requirements. In answer to our question whether the government has fulfilled those three recommendations he said: “The law on rallies has been amended but it still contradicts the resolution because the resolution required to re-amend the law and bring to the same shape as it had been before the amendment. The government of Armenia reached an agreement with the Venice commission, amended the law but did not bring to the same shape as before. Anyway it was accepted as a fact. The next requirement is to establish a commission in charge of investigating the events of March 1. In fact whatever one may say the commission has been established and it works. On the other hand it is another issue whether it will work or no. Whatever would happen there would be people and parties who would not be satisfied with the work of the commission because each party of the commission wants to see decisions in compliance with their interests. It is another issue, but still the commission has been formed.” However Ishkhanyan says that the government of Armenia has not fulfilled the requirement on releasing political prisoners. “This is the main and most important requirement and I think that the monitoring group will mainly focus on this issue,” says Avetik Ishkhanyan.
Regarding our opinion that the monitoring commission will not be strict to Armenia because the government has released some of the political prisoners and changed the legal accusations against many of them Mr. Ishkhanyan said, “Certainly many people were set free, even there were some strange and surprising decisions regarding some of them. Even the court justified five people. It is an unprecedented case in history of the Armenian court. Of course the government of Armenia will say that this requirement is being done or is in the process, and that it is the business of the courts and they don’t have the right to interfere. It is hard to say how the PACE will react to such explanation because the 300rd article is mere political and gives a place for arbitrary interpretations. Certainly those political prisoners should be set free and while they are in cells I don’t think the government’s explanations will help and may change their decisions.” Mr. Ishkhanyan says that maybe the government think that the PACE session in September will not be so strict to Armenia because the attention of the world is totally focused on the processes in Georgia and South Ossetia. “In all cases we should take into consideration the fact that even though the PACE has been established for human rights purposes but sometimes it also deals with political decisions. For this reason it is hard to say what their approach to Armenia may be. Despite all of this we are expecting objective approach from the PACE, which will not depend from the situation in other countries,” said Ishkhanyan.