Yesterday at 3 p.m. of Yerevan time the session of the PACE was launched in Valencia, Spain, which lasted till late evening.
The co-reporters of PACE on Armenia Georges Colombier and John Prescott presented on what Armenia had done in 2009 to improve the situation in terms of conforming to the requirements of PACE resolution 1643. However as of yesterday there was no information about what exactly the co-reporters mentioned. It’s not hard to guess that as a positive step the Armenian government has brought up the changes in articles 225 and 300 of the criminal code of Armenia, which as a matter of fact (at least as of yesterday) didn’t have any influence on the improvement of the situation in Armenia. Let’s remember that during a January sitting the Monitoring Committee considered that progress had been insufficient in the country, despite the political will expressed by the Armenian authorities to address the PACE requirements. The Assembly regretted that, "until the last moment, only limited progress was made by the Armenian authorities with regard to its earlier demands, as expressed in Resolutions 1609 (2008) and 1620 (2008), concerning the release of persons deprived of their liberty in relation to the events of 1 and 2 March 2008." On January 27, the Assembly decided, "not to suspend the voting rights of the members of the Armenian parliamentary delegation to the Assembly at this stage, under Rule 9, paragraphs 3 and 4.c, of the Rules of Procedure." It decides to remain seized of the matter and invites its Monitoring Committee, at its next meeting, before the April 2009 part-session, to examine the progress achieved by the Armenian authorities with regard to the implementation of this and the previous Resolutions. Meanwhile, the main opposition Armenian National Congress (ANC) insisted that the authorities have failed to comply with the PACE resolution. Levon Zurabyan, a senior ANC representative, pointed to the continuing imprisonment of not only the seven men but also some 50 other oppositionists. Many of them were convicted and given prison sentences solely on the basis of police testimony, a practice strongly condemned the Council of Europe. Zurabyan told RFE/RL that the ANC has presented these and other facts in a letter to the Monitoring Committee and its two Armenia co-reporters. If the group considers that Armenia has realized the demands of the group or is still realizing them, nothing harmful is supposed for Armenia, and if it thinks that the process of accomplishment of the demands lacks, the question of suspending Armenia’s voting rights may be again raised, as in December of the last year, when the same monitoring group considered that question on voting rights suspending should be brought during the January session, because Armenia was not accomplishing the PACE demands. But, as it is known, this question was not brought on the PACE agenda in January, but Armenia was again given time until April. Member of the Armenian delegation in PACE and chair of the NA Heritage faction Raffi Hovhannisian also participated in the PACE session. To the question whether Hovhannisian had agreed with the ANC to present the attitude of the Armenian opposition in the PACE Zurabyan said, “unfortunately he didn’t ask us to provide him with information.”