Armenian News
By Ruzanna Stepanian
Armenians are far more scared of dealing with their police than falling
victim to a crime because of endemic police brutality, the country's
former longtime Justice Minister David Harutiunian admitted on Tuesday.
`In our society, there is much more fear of police than that of
criminals, and that is an unfortunate phenomenon,' Harutiunian said.
The remarks came during a seminar in Yerevan that discussed the
widespread mistreatment of criminal suspects and witnesses detained by
law-enforcement bodies. Local and international human rights regard the
practice as the most common form of human rights violations in Armenia.
They say it has continued unabated since the country signed up in 2002
to the European conventions on human rights and the prevention of
torture.
Harutiunian, who ran the Justice Ministry for a decade before taking
over the Armenian parliament's committee on legal affairs last June,
agreed that police brutality remains commonplace. But he said local
media and civic groups can hardly help to address the problem with
`criticism alone' and made a case for `systemic changes' that would
place the security apparatus under public oversight.
Larisa Alaverdian, Armenia's former human rights ombudsperson who is
currently an opposition parliamentarian, claimed that the authorities
are inherently disinterested in tackling ill-treatment in custody. She
argued that very few police officers have been prosecuted for human
rights abuses.
`Big interests are involved there,' said Alaverdian. `I don't believe
that the supreme authority wants to put an end to that but can't
succeed.'
Alaverdian and other seminar participants cited the recent death in
police custody of Levon Gulian, a 31-year-old man who was questioned in
connection with a murder committed near his Yerevan restaurant. Gulian
was found dead in the courtyard of a police building after several days
of interrogations in still uncertain circumstances.
The police insist that he fell to his death while attempting to escape
from the second-floor interrogation room. His relatives believe,
however, that he was tortured to death before being thrown out of the
window.
According to journalists and human rights activists present at the
seminar, two employees of Gulian's restaurant claim to have been beaten
up by police interrogators. Mikael Danielian of the Armenian Helsinki
Association alleged that the police are now trying to bully them into
retracting their torture claims.
Police representatives declined to attend the discussion, citing a busy
work schedule.
Noyan Tapan
Jul 30, 2007
YEREVAN, JULY 30, NOYAN TAPAN. It is envisaged that starting from
January 1, 2008, the system of compulsory insurance of liability
of vehicle owners to third persons will be introduced in Armenia,
the chairman of the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA) Tigran Sargsian
stated on July 27.
In response to NT correspondent's question, he said that the projects
aimed at introducing the system are developed jointly with the RA
Police and implemented in accordance with the concept approved by
the CBA Board.
According to the speaker, an insurance register and a single database
of accidents (all insurance companies will have to record their
data in it) will be created by late 2007. "After this, it will be
stipulated by law when compulsory insurance of liability of vehicle
owners will take effect so that participants of the insurance market,
as well as vehicle owners will prepare for it," T. Sargsian noted.
In his words, insurance companies will have to inform the public
about these insurance tariffs, and they will be punished in case of
deviating from the published tariffs.
Russia and Kosovo
SIR – You are right to point out that Russia's opposition to independence for Kosovo stems from a fear of the precedent it would set for other separatists (“A new battlefield”, July 14th). However, Russia's opposition to the plan put forward by Martti Ahtisaari, the UN mediator, is based not on the concepts of Slav solidarity and Russian imperialism, but on a genuine fear of the full regional and global implications. Making Kosovo an exception to the framework of international law would only encourage other separatist movements and act as a catalyst to territorial problems across the globe.
Our position has been consistent. In accordance with the norms of international law we believe that there should be a jointly accepted, negotiated settlement agreeable both to Kosovo and to Serbia. We do not claim that the territorial and constitutional status of territories cannot evolve. We simply state that, if and when they do, they should do so on the basis of mutual agreement.
The suggestion that Kosovo should declare independence unilaterally is unhelpful. Such contempt for the multilateral mechanisms of international relations would only continue to undermine the institutions already badly damaged by actions of the recent past.
Yuri Fedotov
Ambassador of the Russian Federation
London
TWO STATES IN ONE
An Abkhaz journalist on the elusive statehood of Nagorny Karabakh.
By Akhra Smyr
Although Nagorny Karabakh - or Artsakh as the Armenians like to call it - seems to be a fully self-sufficient state and has all the attributes of one, the reality of its situation is rather different.
Nagorny Karabakh is today basically a province of Armenia but its uniqueness lies in the fact that its statehood makes Armenia a state of two parts. The point is not that Karabakh has its own state bodies and organs - you could elect a president in every province of Armenia and nothing would change. The point is that for Armenians all over the world Karabakh is more than a place where people live, much more than a military victory and much more than a single idea.
It was here after all that Armenians achieved a victory for the first time since the 1915 Genocide - and not so much a military as an ideological victory made possible by a consolidation of forces and resources by Armenians from all over the world. So for Armenians, Karabakh became the foundation of a new, positive sense of identity. For the first time in a millennium, Armenians felt that they were a victorious nation.
This special status of Karabakh could not but affect developments in Armenia itself. Karabakh Armenian leader Robert Kocharian moved into the presidential chair in Armenia. The Karabakh elite has had a huge influence on the development of life in Armenia and even the telecommunications company Karabakh Telecom, the local monopoly, has squeezed the Armenian firm ArmenTelecom out of the market.
It is a two-way street. The current elite in Armenia also influences what happens in Karabakh and it can be hard to work out which is the tail and which is the dog. That is what makes Armenia two states in one in the context of the international non-recognition of the statehood of Karabakh.
The Goris-Stepanakert road looks very modern. In contrast to the roads of much of the former USSR, it is well kept and not pot-holed. This road was built after the war with the money of the Armenian Diaspora. Some rich Karabakhis are also building. Levon Hairapetian, who comes from the village of Vank, has built a series of factories, a shopping centre and a hotel in his home village - not something that can be said of many Caucasian villages.
In contrast to this, Shushi, a town that once had a majority Azerbaijani population and is now home to three thousand Armenians, is a depressing sight. There is practically no life here, just the splendid architectural heritage that survived the war.
War did not just destroy human lives. War burned houses, destroyed confidence in tomorrow and built a powerful wall of mutual hostility. You feel this keenly in Shushi. The contrast between the restored church, the hotel refurbished by the Dashnaks, an Armenian nationalist party, and the magnificent scenery on the one hand, and on the other the faces of the Armenian refugees from Baku living among the ruins is overwhelming. In Shushi, you want to believe that you are in a scene from a surrealist film and not in a present-day reality.
Overall Karabakh does not look like this. If you overlook the fairly infrequent traces of war you can feel as if you are in a pastoral idyll. Karabakh is a place which its inhabitants believe in, a place with a future.
Karabakhis are generally no different from other people on Earth. Like others, they go to work, create works of art, dress their children in nice clothes to go out for a stroll in the evening. Their desire to live a normal life has erased practically all traces of death and destruction. They want to believe in a future without war, whose lingering traces distract them from fine thoughts and make them remember with pain the tribulations of their recent history.
Akhra Smyr is a correspondent with Chegemskaya Pravda newspaper
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