“The repressive and poor policy of the incumbent authorities first of all will lead them through the path of demolishing themselves. Also their policy of slowing down the movement has failed too and brought to unexpected results. Now the people’s movement, led by the National Congress and their supporters, is stronger than ever. We are keeping strong and united and improving the institutional capacities of our institutions,” said the coordinator of the Armenian National Congress Levon Zurabyan during yesterday’s press conference. Concerning the future plans of the Congress he said that there is no decision concerning organizing a rally on March 1 yet. “It does not mean that we may adopt such decision because of political developments. I can’t tell you about any specific plans when we are going to start the demonstrations, but I assure that we will publish such plan when we think it appropriate for starting demonstrations,” said Zurabyan. According to him, if the PACE adopts sanctions on Armenia and the political detainees are not released, there will be no other option than pressure on the authorities through mass demonstrations. “Now there are 59 political prisoners in Armenia. Karen Hayrapetyan, who is the army officer who was made to give testimony against Myasnik Malkhasyan’s driver, may join the list of political prisoners as well. In fact he was imprisoned for taking his testimony back,” says Zurabyan and informs that so far only seven political prisoners have been released based on their applications to forgive them. “The authorities have not even tried to use the law enabling them to release the prisoners who have spent 1/3 of their punishment term. For this purpose the administration of the prison should apply to the corresponding bodies. They have not done this. Sixteen persons could be released,” said Zurabyan and re-affirmed that if the political detainees are released the ANC will be ready to enter into dialogue with the authorities. He also spoke about the proceedings launched against Ruben Apinyan, who failed to judge twice, which means that the authorities are becoming stricter to the issue of political prisoners. There are two opinions concerning the delay of the Case of Seven. Some people say the opposition is interested in such delay, however Zurabyan says that it is done by the authorities. “If the Case of Seven proceeds normally and in open conditions, everyone will understand that the one to sit there on the chair of the accused criminal shall be the incumbent political regime. This is the reason why after the first court session, when journalists and lawyers were invited too, the political regime realized this fact and by reasoning that the accused persons don’t stand up failed the court proceedings.” Why doesn’t the ANC convince the seven accused people to stand up to enable the court session take place? “What will be the difference between the incumbent political regime and us if we make our guys to do what we want and ignore their political consciousness? They don’t stand up because their political consciousness does not let them do it,” said Zurabyan. The latter believes that the crimes of March 1 will be discovered. “We promise that all the cases of murder will be discovered. Either we will do that, or they will do that under our pressure,” he said. Concerning the conflict of Karabakh he says that the fact that there are political prisoners in Armenia makes Serzh Sargsyan’s positions weaker and he is going to meet his Azeri counterpart having such weak positions. “I don’t know whether anything will be signed but it is clear that the authorities are suggesting such deal to the international community. There is a documental proof of that fact, which is Hovik Abrahamyan’s letter. The letter clearly writes that the possible sanctions will impact Armenia’s decisiveness to establish peace and stability in the region. In other words he says that if they apply sanctions we will not settle the conflict of Karabakh. In fact the incumbent political regime is suggesting a deal with that document, the purpose of which is to let them know that we will compromise in the Karabakh issue against their silence and if they allow us to keep the political prisoners in cells more. We will see whether the international community is ready for such deal or no,” said Zurabyan. In answer to a remark that there are political prisoners in Azerbaijan as well Mr. Zurabyan said that political prisoners in Azerbaijan don’t make Aliyev vulnerable. “Due to their oil resources the government of Azerbaijan has an opportunity to maneuver,” he said.
