Armenian News - ARMENIA: ARRESTS CONTINUE

Wednesday, 26 March, 2008

Opposition complains of continued harassment following end of state of emergency.
By Gegham Vardanian in Yerevan

Despite the lifting of the state of emergency in the Armenian capital Yerevan, the country's opposition says dozens of its activists remain in custody, with a greater number facing criminal charges.

Among 135 people in detention are two members of parliament, Myasnik Malkhasian and Hakob Hakobian, and former foreign minister Aleksandr Arzumanian.

Former prime minister Aram Sarkisian, the head of the opposition Republic Party, was accused on March 25 of organising unauthorised demonstrations and attempting to seize power. He is not in custody but is not being allowed to leave the country.

On March 26, Arshak Banuchian, the deputy director of Armenia's ancient manuscripts institute, the Matenadaran, and a former colleague of ex-president and opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosian, was detained on charges of disturbing public order.

Most of the charges against opposition leaders relate to the violence in Yerevan on March 1, in which at least eight people died. While the opposition accuses the government of violently suppressing peaceful protests, the authorities say they were acting to stop an attempted seizure of power.

Thomas Hammarberg, human rights commissioner for the Council of Europe, has recommended that "a comprehensive inquiry be established into the events of 1 March" and that the enquiry be "independent, impartial, transparent and perceived as credible by the whole population".

Media restrictions have now been lifted in Yerevan, but the city is still tense and Freedom Square around the city's opera-house, the meeting place of the opposition, is often ringed with police, especially in the evenings.

At a March 20 press conference, outgoing president Robert Kocharian said the state of emergency imposed on March 1 after the violence had served a useful purpose. "Immediately after it was introduced, the situation calmed down, an opportunity was created for consolidating that stabilisation process with concrete actions," he said.

Opposition activists have been treated with varying degrees of harshness. Many have been detained and then released without charge. Others have been questioned, charged and released. Ter-Petrosian is still under de facto house arrest with visitors to his house being checked and his government guards not allowing him to go out "on grounds of security".

One of those detained on March 1 and later released was Armen Ohanian, who worked as a representative for Ter-Petrosian during the elections, and who helped lead the subsequent street protests.

"I was walking down Abovian Street [in central Yerevan] with two colleagues when we were stopped by two law-enforcement officials and told to follow them," he told IWPR. "We did not resist and they didn't say on what grounds they were stopping us and where they were taking us."

The three men were handcuffed and taken to a police station. Ohanian said that on the way, the policemen mocked his glasses and called him "Shurik" in reference to a bespectacled hero of Soviet cinema comedy.

In the police station, Ohanian's demand for a lawyer was refused and he was not allowed to make any telephone calls. He was informed that he had been detained for "resisting the police".

"One of the bosses called Abrahamian said that in the record of my detention it was written that I had hit the policemen," he said. "The policeman who arrested me said that he could not write that as he did not want to be in a stupid position in court and give false testimony."

Ohanian said that the policemen treated him normally when their boss was not in the room but when he wasn't there they mocked him and promised to beat him. He spent the night sleeping on chairs in the police station.
He was taken to the prosecutor's office on March 2 and then released.

Ohanian lodged a written complaint with Armenia's human rights ombudsman Armen Harutiunian.

Harutiunian's press secretary Grigor Grigorian said that he received more than a dozen complaints about illegal actions and beatings by the police since March 1. "Some of them have been confirmed and some haven't," said Grigorian.

Detainees have complained both to representatives of the ombudsman and to Hammarberg that they were beaten during their arrests and while in detention.

"Physical harm has been recorded with 12 of the accused and expert reports have been commissioned to explain the reason for this," said Sona Truzian, press secretary of the prosecutor general.

"Violation of the rights of detainees is happening everywhere," said Mikael Danielian, human rights activist and head of Armenia's Helsinki Association. "They are invited orally to come to the police station for a conversation but this conversation can last three hours or 20 days."

Danielian said that detainees from the provinces had suffered especially badly from police abuse.

"In our cell was a boy from Hrazdan who they beat up," said detainee Armen Ohanian. "They beat him up again in my presence when he tried to answer back to a policeman who insulted him. One of them held him and the other beat him."

Ohanian said that many detainees were taken home by friends or relatives without any evidence being left that they had been arrested in the first place.

A young man named Sedrak (not his real name) was arrested along with five of his friends on the morning of March 2, the day after the street clashes in Yerevan. They had taken part in the opposition demonstration outside the French embassy. They were held for the entire day in a police station.

"Our parents paid the police 100,000 drams (330 US dollars) for each of us for us to be released," said Sedrak.

Outside Yerevan, opposition supporters also claim harassment.

On March 11, Armen Hovannisian, an official in the administration in Armenia's northern Lori region, was sacked from his job because he had taken part in rallies in support of Ter-Petrosian.

In the written explanation for Hovannisian's dismissal, his boss, Ashot Manukian, wrote that it was because of "violations of the principle of political balance by a civil servant".

Hovannisian said that he is one of the founders of Ter-Petrosian's Armenian National Movement party which used to govern Armenia and campaigned on behalf of the former president. He says that he deliberately took leave during and after the election campaign in order to engage in political activity.

Asked why Hovannisian was not allowed to campaign for the opposition, when the majority of the Lori administration were members of the pro-government Republican Party, and took part in rallies in support of official presidential candidate Serzh Sarkisian, Manukian replied, "But this is the governing party and it represents the authorities, that is natural."

In Yerevan, ordinary opposition supporters say they are still suffering harassment on the street, despite the lifting of the state of emergency.

Street demonstrations are still banned, so instead opposition activists have taken to staging "walks" through the streets of Yerevan holding portraits of detainees. The police in their turn have started detaining participants in these events. Senior Yerevan police official Valery Osipian said that two men detained on March 24 had been "breaching public order".

Gegham Vardanian is a journalist with Internews in Yerevan. Naira Bulghadarian in Vanadzor contributed to this article.

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Armenian Oppositionists Extradited By Georgia
By Karine Kalantarian and Irina Hovannisian in Prague

Armenian prosecutors confirmed on Wednesday that two of the opposition
activists facing lengthy prison sentences for their involvement in the
post-election protests in Yerevan were arrested in Georgia and
extradited to Armenia by Georgian law-enforcement authorities.

Samvel Abovian and Suren Sirunian are among more than a hundred
supporters of former President Levon Ter-Petrosian arrested in the wake
of Armenia's disputed presidential election. Like the vast majority of
the detainees, they have been charged in connection with the March 1
deadly clashes in Yerevan between riot police and opposition
demonstrators.

A leader of the Armenian community in Tbilisi, Arnold Stepanian, told
RFE/RL earlier this week that dozens of Ter-Petrosian supporters have
fled to Georgia since the launch of the unprecedented government
crackdown. He said at least two of them have been arrested and
extradited by the Georgian police.

A spokeswoman for Georgia's Interior Ministry denied this. `I don't know
where they got that information from,' a ministry spokesman, Shota
Khizanishvili, told RFE/RL on Monday. `It does not correspond to
reality.'

But both Abovian and Sirunian insisted through their defense lawyer that
they did flee to Tbilisi to avoid prosecution at home following the
March 1 unrest. `They were detained in Georgia on March 9, at one
o'clock in the morning,' the lawyer, Anzhela Hobosian, told RFE/RL. She
said the two men were handed over to Armenian law-enforcement bodies on
March 10 and formally charged with organizing `mass riots' two days
later.

A spokeswoman for Armenia's Office of the Prosecutor-General, Sona
Truzian, confirmed the information. But she declined to give further
details.

A spokesman for the Armenian Foreign Ministry, Tigran Balayan, pointed
to a 2000 Georgian-Armenian agreement that obligates the two governments
to extradite criminal suspects.

Stepanian claimed, however, that the two Armenian oppositionists were
apprehended in `blatant violation' of the Georgian constitution.
`According to our constitution, Georgia can not extradite people fleeing
other countries for political reasons,' he said.

Stepanian warned that the Georgian authorities will face protests from
domestic opposition and civic groups if they catch more Armenians who he
said have taken refuge in Tbilisi and other parts of the country,
including the Armenian-populated Javakheti region. `According to our
information, there are now some 40 people in Georgia who fled Armenia
and fear that they would be arrested upon their return home,' he said.
`They are all opposition members who participated in the [Ter-Petrosian]
rallies.'

Stepanian said he has met and spoken with several fugitive
oppositionists. He said some of them claimed to be members of the
opposition Armenian Pan-National Movement (HHSh) and the Yerkrapah Union
of Armenian war veterans that unofficially supported Ter-Petrosian
during the presidential race.

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Armenian Police Step Up Street Detentions
By Hovannes Shoghikian, Ruben Meloyan and Ruzanna Stepanian

The Armenian police stepped up on Wednesday daily detentions of
opposition supporters who have been gathering and strolling on a street
in downtown Yerevan since the lifting of the state of emergency last
Friday.

The police have been at pains to prevent more opposition rallies by
circling the city's Liberty Square and dispersing groups of opposition
supporters gathering outside it. Hundreds of them staged daily silent
walks along the newly built Northern Avenue leading to the square
despite random detentions carried out by law-enforcement officers on the
sport. The detainees are normally set free and fined after spending
several hours in police custody.

The number of detentions rose drastically on Friday, with dozens of
people, many of them women, bundled into police vehicles and driven away
>From the pedestrian avenue. `Where are you taking me?' yelled one
elderly woman with a walking cane as she was led away by several
policemen.

`Get in the car, we'll go to the station and have a talk,' said one of
them. `I can't come with you, I need to take drugs,' insisted the woman.
`I can come over to the police station tomorrow.'

Another, younger, woman screamed and burst into tears as she saw her
husband seized by other policemen. `Where are you taking my husband,'
she cried. `Don't I have the right to walk with my husband? Please
respond.'

`Madam, it was a mistake,' a plainclothes officers told her moments
later. `Your husband will be let go now. Let us take you to him.' She
refused.

Artyom Babayan, head of the criminal investigations unit at the Yerevan
police, watched and defended the arrests. `Attempts to clear up things
have such effects, whereas in a police station you can ask people
questions, look at their identification documents and clarify whether
they broke law,' he said.

Babayan claimed that the police detain supporters of opposition leader
Levon Ter-Petrosian also because there could be `wanted criminals' among
them. `We have information that such persons may commit crimes here,' he
told RFE/RL. `Who says they may not? Can you guarantee that?'

`With such steps the authorities further escalate the situation,'
countered Larisa Alaverdian, a parliament deputy from the opposition
Zharangutyun (Heritage) party who was also at the scene.

As was the case in the previous days, the detainees were taken to the
police headquarters of Yerevan's central Kentron district. Among them
was Lyumdila Sargsian, the leader of the Social Democrat Hnchakian
Party, one of two dozen opposition groups aligned to Ter-Petrosian.
Speaking to RFE/RL by phone, she said there are about 50 opposition
supporters inside the building. The police station's door was locked and
officers there could not be immediately reached for comment.

In the meantime, several dozen people, most of them friends and
relatives of the detainees, gathered outside the building. They were
joined by Alaverdian and other Zharangutyun parliamentarians who tried
unsuccessfully to get in. `The police actions are absolutely illegal,'
one of them, Zaruhi Postanjian, said.

Despite the end of emergency rule, rallies and other street protests in
Yerevan remain effectively banned, with the authorities citing the need
to prevent a repeat of the March 1 violent clashes in the capital. The
police say any gathering of ten or more people amounts to a rally and
can therefore be broken up.

The de facto ban was facilitated by amendments to Armenia's law on
public gatherings that was passed by the Armenian parliament last week.
Ter-Petrosian and other opposition leaders say the amendments are
unconstitutional.

The situation also remained tense on Wednesday in the Vanatur suburb of
Hrazdan, a town about 50 kilometers north of Yerevan. Dozens of local
residents gathered there for the third consecutive day to demand the
release of Sasun Mikaelian, the local parliamentarian jailed and
prosecuted on coup charges along with more than 100 other Ter-Petrosian
loyalists.

The protest continued despite similar random detentions of their
participants. The protesters, many of them schoolchildren, chanted
`Sasun!' and `Freedom!' and law-enforcement officers led by the chief of
the Hrazdan police, Avetik Abrahamian, urged them to disperse, saying
that the rally is illegal. One of the protesters, Arshaluys Bozinian,
claimed to have been on hunger strike since Monday.

Police officers also visited the Vanatur school and interrogated
students in the principal's office in an apparent effort to discourage
them from attending the daily rallies with their parents. An RFE/RL
correspondent was allowed to enter the room after one such interrogation
conducted by Armen Markosian, head of the juvenile crime unit at the
Hrazdan police. A 16-year-old boy questioned by Markosian was writing an
explanation at that point.

`We are interviewing the children to find out why they skipped classes,'
Markosian told RFE/RL. `We are obliged to warn the children not to be
absent from the school.'

`The juvenile delinquency unit of the police is supposed to carry out
such actions,' he said.

Angry parents who waited for their children in the school lobby
disagreed. One of them, Samvel Ohanian, was furious with the police for
questioning his 10-year-old son in his absence. `They did not inform
me,' he said. `If the boy gets scared, who will answer for that? I
declare that starting from tomorrow I won't let any of my two children
go to the school.'

`When our kids see a policeman, they get scared,' said Lusine
Hayrapetian, another Vanatur resident. `This has never happened
before.'

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PRESS RELEASE
Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, Information Services
Watch Video of His Holiness Karekin II's Easter Message

On March 23, His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of
All Armenians, celebrated a pontifical divine liturgy in the Mother
Cathedral of Holy Etchmiadzin, and delivered his message to the Armenian
people dispersed throughout the world, on the occasion of the Feast of the
Glorious Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

To view the video of the Easter sermon of the Armenian Pontiff, please visit
the website of the Armenian Church, www.armenianchurch.org and click on the
link for March 23 under `Latest News'.

You can also view the video on YouTube, by clicking on the following links:

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?véO9iRjQqyo

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLjwWQRcqe0

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