– Mr. Harutyunyan, the Rapporteur of the Human Rights Commission of the CoE Thomas Hammarberg declared in Yerevan two weeks ago that the developments of the investigation of the March 1 case “smell like political vendetta.” How do you estimate the current situation?
– I met with Hammarberg at that time and he didn’t come up with such rigid formulations. It is a very rigid formulation for me. He just thought that the fact of evidence in these cases is pretty vague and thus expressed his concerns about that. He said that there are certain issues connected with the investigation. I also think so. I think that certain things and moments in the cases are not quite understandable. I said a month ago that if these cases ever go to the Court of Strasbourg the government of Armenia will lose most of the case.
– Several days ago President Serzh Sargsyan declared amnesty for three imprisoned ones, who were charged in the framework of the March 1 case. There is an opinion that the imprisoned ones were constrained to write an apology letter to the president to be granted amnesty.
– Of course, if people voluntarily ask for an apology it is a positive thing. And if they were constrained to o so it is indeed negative. But in this case we must understand whether it really happened or not. This phenomenon may be estimated both as positive and negative. I would find it negative if I received complaints from them but I didn’t receive anything.
– What is your opinion about the process of investigation of the March 1-2 case?
– I think that the fact-finding group will invest certain change in the process of the investigation. I have also tried to reveal the reality of the case while asking questions at the sessions of the parliamentary ad hoc commission on the investigation of March 1 clashes. I will also prepare for questions for other officials, especially for police officers. It would be very good if the former chief of police Hayk Harutyunyan was invited to the sessions of the ad hoc. I mostly rely on such meetings and questions to officials, who were personally involved in the event of March 1. This is a more productive method than the court verdicts because in this case there is a risk of partisanship. As our monitoring shows in courts and police departments subjectivity prevails. At any rate, I, being the Ombudsman of Armenia, am not very satisfied of the quality of investigation. We have numerous complaints. People complain that they are obliged to sign paper and are constantly in pressure. It was unprecedented.
– Thus, you connect the revelation of the March 1 case with the fact finding committee and the parliamentary ad hoc rather than the courts of law-enforcing bodies.
– Yes, I am more hopeful about the ad hoc and the fact-finding group activities.
– The Armenian National Congress and the heritage declared that the government impedes the functioning of the fact-finding committee. Hasn’t your chief of staff, who is also a member of the fact-finding group, complained about the conditions the fact-finding group works in?
– To be quite frank, I don’t have information about his activity at the committee but as long as he is still there working I don’t think the situation is so bad. I haven’t heard any complaints from him so far.
– The chair of the ad hoc commission Samvel Nikoyan revealed that on the night of March 1 there was a sniper shooter as well. What do you think about this?
– There was pessimism about the activity of the ad hoc but the revelations showed that it had succeeded revealing certain important facts. Till now it is unclear to me what the intelligence officers were doing at the Liberty Square in the morning. I think it was the job of the investigators and not them. They were saying that the military forces arrived in the evening. In that case what did the military machine had to do in the daytime of 11 a.m. These questions never received responses to suffice us. They were saying that there was no sniper shooter but it appeared that there was.
– Nine months have passed since these events. During this period has the ad hoc made any essential revelation for you?
– Nothing essential was yet revealed, which would satisfy me. Vice versa, the process got even more entangled and new questions are raised. For me the most important thing is the event of the morning of March 1. If they had information that the protesters are accumulating weapon would wouldn’t they prevent it earlier and waited till the weapon would be there. And then they found out that no one used any of those weapons. There are issues, which make us seriously ponder.
– About a week ago the ad hoc showed a video prepared by the National Security Service, where they showed the bugged phone conversation of opposition actors. Prior to that these conversations were published in certain newspapers. What do you think about this fact?
– I haven’t seen that video but in terms of human rights I find the publicizing of conversations unacceptable. I also find it unacceptable that the principle of bank secrecy is violated. This shows that our country has human right issues.
– In January session the PACE will discuss the issue of Armenia. By considering the current situation do you think the PACE will apply sanctions against Armenia?
– If certain people think that the application of sanctions against Armenia will increase the level of democracy in the country they are mistaken. I am against these sanctions. I am for applying internal sanctions and not the ones imposed from abroad. I think it will be a great mistake if the PACE applies sanctions against Armenia. Nevertheless, I hope sanctions are not applied. Democracy is an evolutional process and depends on mentality as well.
– You have been the Human Rights Watch of Armenia for almost three years now. Have you noticed any progress in human rights sector during this period?
– I cannot speak either about progress or regress. The system is not democratic and if we had regress during this period we would have a totalitarian system but we don’t live in the conditions of totalitarianism. We have serious issues related to freedom of speech as showed the recent events, such as assaulting journalists for the professional activities. However, people receive information either from opposition newspapers or the Internet. It is worthless to speak about information plurality provided by electronic media – TV channels. All these channels have a single direction and reflect the opinion of the government. Of course this is not totalitarianism but not democracy either.
– Wasn’t the March 1 regress for our country in terms of human rights?
– We didn’t have any significant achievements in this sector to claim that we should have retained those. The March 1 events just showed the incompatibility of the civic-political lives, as a result of which this collision happened. It means the civic sector is trying to go forward but the political sector is trying to impede the process. This is the issue of both the government and the opposition. March 1 has only proved this. And it is dangerous if the society overtakes the political elite. The issue of human rights is a key one for Armenia, which has scarce resources.