The political powers that are serving for the authorities are announcing that what happened has been expected: the PACE envoy on Human Rights Thomas Hammarberg did not use the term “political prisoner”. Instead of that he said that the PACE will not impose sanctions in Armenia. The fact that Mr. Hammarberg failed to speak out the term “political prisoner” does not mean that there are no political prisoners in Armenia. Likewise, when the US president does not use the term genocide on April 24 every year because of political reasons does not make us think that there was no genocide. Even more, we consider him a man of principles who does whatever is in his interests. As a result of the European envoy’s visit to Armenia the expectations of the Armenian authorities came true and the opposition did not lose the hope either. In such cloudy situations the Hammarberg’s words do not have such a big importance. The words are not so important even if he is saying that “the people imprisoned as a result of the clashes of March 1 should not be in prisons because the court decision had political purposes.” Everybody is ready to offer services for this purpose. Even the small political powers that are not even noticed in the political life are returning to the political arena because of the fear of being unused. Days ago the Prospective party that has been lost announced that they are becoming active again and are joining the Prosperous Armenia party. Salary in an envelope from the party, a good position in the parliament, a service car, trips on the expense of taxpayers, and an opportunity to see Serzh Sargsyan and Gagik Tsarukyan from afar once a month – these are attractive things that may make the political elite to sell the product that is called their “souls”. This is evident even after the visits of European officials. Those who are responsible for the situation consider it a big achievement to hide the truth from European officials. After that they send their pictures in different positions to editorial offices of newspapers together with the text writing what they have told those officials. The comfort of the life makes the officials to explain and justify their actions. The traders who are making a demonstration near the city hall of Yerevan seem to be just a crowd of unpleasant people to the officials that are going to work in their comfortable private or service cars. Even more, the new mayor seems to be successful manager to them and the elections that proceeded in widespread violations seem to be fair elections with minor shortcomings to them, which are a step forward. Violations can be done in every country. The citizens that are arrested for their political opinions are criminals for them, whose legal status is not defined by the law though. Accordingly, these people are not criminals but not political prisoners either. They are simply imprisoned people, and that’s all.
Those who think that the political prisoners are criminals, due to whose faults people were killed, are making statements with prejudice. If we consider them criminals, a lot of things connected with the March 1 may seem suspicious. A lot of things coincide with a preliminary planned action. But if we consider that these people are not criminals and are not guilty in the death of the ten civilians killed with the hands of unknown people, the events and processes of March 1 will not seem suspicious anymore. It will become clear that every scene and action has a certain explanation. Try to repeat all the time that somebody is guilty and all his/her actions will seem suspicious to you. Suspects will become facts in your consciousness, the facts will be accusations. In the result of that the authorities themselves will start to believe that by arresting people for their political opinions they are saving the society from potential victims.
The lives of the victims of March 1 do not cost anything to them. Even if this issue is discussed much, it is a fact that their families are the ones that really bear this heavy mourn. It is a fact that nobody but only the doctors that took out the bullets of the bodies of those victims could come to certain conclusions and understand what had happened. To be fair, neither the authorities nor the opposition are interested in the freedom of the political prisoners (the political activists that are imprisoned will make the opposition move and demand when they are set free). After the political prisoners are released, especially if Nikol Pashinyan is released, the opposition will have to revise its decision not to do anything. Is the ANC ready for that? It is hard to say. It is also useless to say if our society would benefit if the political elite did not consists of clans. It is hard to find any honest person in our political life.
In other words, hardly the visit of the PACE envoy or his report may change anything in Armenia’s life. It does not change anything, even if we take into consideration the fact that “the people imprisoned as a result of the clashes of March 1 should not be in prisons because the court decision had political purposes.”
