The Human Rights Defender of RA Armen Harutyunyan radically denies the accusations expressed in the joint statement of the Armenian National Congress and “Heritage” party and is not going to allow political forces to lay their blame on the Human Rights Defender. According to the Defender both the authorities and the opposition used the fact-finding group for the political manipulations and did not allow it to act as an experts’ group. One gains the impression that the representatives of the coalition and opposition acted in cooperation in the group. The following circumstances are evidence of that: First of all, the authorities could establish that group earlier not waiting until the respective structures of the CoE put pressure on them. Besides, the representatives of the coalition in the fact-finding group assumed non-constructive, passive position. Moreover, catching at an excuse Robert Avagyan announced about his withdrawal from the group. The opposition blames the Human Rights Defender for disrupting the activities of the group. That would correspond to reality if the Defender refused to propose a new candidate. In case of desire to work the opposition could call on the representatives of the political forces to exhibit modest behavior and take notice of the willingness of the Defender to propose a new candidate. Furthermore, if the opposition was interested in the efficient work of the fact-finding group, question arises why Andranik Kocharyan was the main creator of tension and also the person giving offences. The abovementioned evidences that the decision of Vahe Stepanyan to withdraw from the group was justified. However, the Defender does not refuse to propose a new candidate, but in this case he would be not an expert, but a person more corresponding to the atmosphere formed in the group. One person cannot play chess if the other four are instructed to play Rugby. The reason for absence of expert atmosphere in the group is not because of the representative of the Defender, but the representatives of political forces.
