As it was expected the encouragement of the Armenian government regarding PACE resolution 1643 was first of all connected with the fact that it didn’t imply the term “political detainee.” The co-reporters on Armenia John Prescott and Georges Colombier made changes to it. This provision was not included in the resolution since the co-reporters reported considerable progress to the PACE. Amazingly, the co-reporters commended the fact of pardon without taking into account that most persons who signed the letters of pardon were political prisoners who signed them under pressure. In fact, there are still 58 political prisoners in prison, so it is difficult to accept that progress has been made. The second argument for change in the resolution was the political wish of the Armenian government to allegedly revise the notorious Article 225 and Article 300 of the Crime Code. We are deeply convinced that this is another deceit of the government, considering their previous style of action. Proceeding from past experience, the Armenian government resorted to that move to temporize and avoid the solution of the problem. We are hopeful that the co-reporters have distinct guarantees from the Armenian government that they will keep their promise. Even if there are guarantees, the Armenian National Congress continues to have concerns. In particular, a number of political prisoners were convicted under different articles of the Crime Code. Does it mean that those who were convicted under other articles will be ignored? Does it mean that because of the promise of the Armenian government to revise Articles 225 and 300 the acts of violence against the political prisoners in prison should be ignored, which even the Armenian government admits? It should not be forgotten that the demand for the basic benchmarks of democracy in the resolutions 1609 and 1620 were not limited to the issue of political prisoners. The co-reporters did not utter a word about the problems of the Orwell state of the electronic media in Armenia, or the constraints on rallies, which were mentioned in all the resolutions. According to the member of the Armenian delegation in the PACE Armen Rustamyan the resolution implies that anyone, who was arrested based on these articles, must be released. To our question whether it is possible that the government of Armenian may amend the articles 225 and 300 in a way that these detainees still stay in jail Rustamyan responded, “I think in that case serious contradictions may be originated because the constipation defines that in such cases the amended law must be applied shortly. It means that the people, who were sentenced based on these articles must be released once the mentioned 225 and 300 articles are annulled in the criminal code. I have always said that political and criminal crimes must always be separated.” To a more concrete question whether the detainees will be ultimately released or not Rustamyan said, “If the prosecutor general drops the accusations what else will be left to do? Of course release them.” When speaking to us the Armenian National Congress (ANC) expresses disappointment at PACE’s attitude towards Armenia, in particular at the adoption of Resolution 1643 during yesterday’s session. Armenia’s senior oppositionists Levon Zurabyan and Arman Grigoryan today handed the PACE delegates ANC’s letter regarding Resolution 1643 as a “backward step” from the Monitoring Committee’s draft resolution of December 17, 2008. “The letter was given to all parliamentarians both in printed and electronic versions,” Levon Zurabyan told us. “The voting at the Monitoring Committee and Assembly was based on unverified information,” runs the ANC letter. The Congress ensures that out of the 16 detainees granted a Presidential pardon last week 14 are criminals and only two have been recognized as political prisoners by the Armenian opposition. The ANC is surprised that the co-rapporteurs welcome the Presidential decree when in reality most detainees appealing for pardon were forced to sign the document. The Congress states that 58 political prisoners are still jailed, and their existence puts the verisimilitude of the report into question. The letter says the authorities’ pledge to amend Articles 225 and 300 of Armenia’s Criminal Code is another trick to gain time. Furthermore, the Congress voices concern that “the Co- rapporteurs’ activity lacks transparency, and they avoid any contact with the Armenian opposition. The co-authors say that the fact that the co-rapporteurs didn’t meet with the Armenian opposition during their last visit to Yerevan “directly affected the quality of their report and the reputation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.” The Armenian National Congress voices hope that the situation will soon be remedied which will require “active involvement and assiduous work of PACE relevant bodies and political groups.” As a response to ANC’s behavior Rustamyan told us, “Of course the fact of granting amnesty means that these people asked for amnesty. The opposition is trying to say that 28 are guilty but they are not one of them and don’t have any connection with the ANC or the opposition overall. And 28 people are definitely guilty because they asked the government to grant amnesty. Who are these people in that case? Weren’t they there on March 1? The opposition is trying to say that they have absolutely no connection with destruction of shops and vehicles and that their activities are only the ones, who spoke from the podium during demonstrations.” Reminder: The supporters of these recommendations who addressed the Assembly during the discussion on Armenia proceeded from the fact of release of 28 political prisoners after December 17, 2008, including 16 persons pardoned on January 24, 2009 by the president. The problem is that 14 of the 16 prisoners are criminals who are not found on the opposition’s list of political prisoners. Importantly, pardon to that long list was granted two days before the session of the monitoring committee, on Saturday, to have no time to inquire for more information. The ANC claims that the people, who were granted amnesty, were the proxies of Serzh Sargsyan. As a response to the same question the chair of the Armenian delegation in the PACE Davit Harutyunyan said, “I don’t know who were granted amnesty. All these people were charged based on March 1 case. I am having a hard time to say how many of these are considered opposition on part of the ANC.” However yesterday Levon Zurabyan once again mentioned that they had claimed from the government to punish the ones, who were criminal culprits and release the ones, jailed for their political views. According to Rustamyan the report presented by the co-rapporteurs on December 17 was “imbalanced” and “radical.” Thus, he is satisfied that the report is balanced now. “The recent changes cause certain balance. The situation, which existed after the decision of December 17, caused certain radicalism and exaggeration. It’s very important that the new resolution reflects the presence of political will of Armenia’s government. The presence of political will was first of all proven by the fact that the government is establishing a working group on amending articles 225 and 300 in the criminal code of RA, which will be implementing concrete objectives. This was the best way to revise the articles so that the prosecutor would be able to revise the verdicts and accusations,” said Rustamyan by assuring that by April the government has a full opportunity to comply with the requirements of the PACE new resolution. But what was an obstacle for the RA government to revise these articles long ago so that they wouldn’t deserve such “lenience” on part of the European organization? Wasn’t the government able to do this sooner? As a response to these questions davit Harutyunyan responded, “Of course, we could have. I am having a hard time to say why this wasn’t done by now. Perhaps this fact wasn’t mature enough. If you remember at the beginning we had to deal with absolutely unacceptable formulations of the same section. After certain time people realized that it’s unacceptable.” To the question whether this favorable resolution wouldn’t cause certain tension in Armenia Harutyunyan said, “What do you mean by saying favorable? Favorable because we are not deprived of our voting right? I am far from evaluating the resolutions in such a way. I can only speak about goals and the basic goal is stability and hope that everything is going to be settled down.” In her speech Swedish parliamentarian Marietta d’Purbach-Loundin by addressing to the Armenian delegated mentioned that the fact of now applying sanctions against Armenia would mean giving cart blanche to the Armenian government (of course she ended up doing the same by voting on behalf of the news resolution). She is also skeptical about the release of political prisoners by April. However, according to Rustamyan the Armenian government has sufficient political will to resolve the situation as soon as possible. “I confidently declare that the Armenian government really doesn’t benefit from having conflicts with the Council of Europe. Of course the process was prolonged for nine months; we may have done it sooner. We have made certain progress though and short time is needed to bring the whole process to its end,” assured Rustamyan when interviewed by us.
P.S. Several days ago ANC member Levon Zurabyan said that they are going to express their distrust to co-rapporteurs of the PACE Monitoring Commission John Prescott and Georges Colombier however it didn’t happen. During the conversation with us ANC member Arman Grigoryan said that they won’t be able to do it with limited resources. “We don’t have opposition representatives in the Armenian delegation,” he said. To the question whether the standpoint of Raffi Hovhannisian is right at this stage Grigoryan said, “Hovhannisian adopted an attitude, which is not like the ANC’s. To be frank I wouldn’t like to comment on Hovhannisian’s decision. There are many ways of struggle and he chose that way of expressing his compliant. It’s obvious that we don’t share his policy but I don’t tend to criticize his decision.”
Strasbourg-Yerevan