RA AUTHORITIES ARE AFRAID THAT THEY WILL NOT RECEIVE PEOPLE’S VOTES
AT FORTHCOMING PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS, A NUMBER OF NGOs DECLARE

YEREVAN, JANUARY 24, NOYAN TAPAN. The Armenian authorities are
afraid that they will not receive people’s votes at the forthcoming
parliamentary elections, so by violence towards opposition politicians
and journalists they try to suppress any opposition action. This
was mentioned in the joint statement of participants of roundtable
on the subject "On Preelection Violence and Pressures in Armenia"
organized on January 24 at the Zharangutiun (Heritage) party office.

In the words of Artur Sakunts, Chairman of Vanadzor Office of
Helsinki Civil Assembly, Larisa Alaverdian, Chairwoman of Against
Legal Self-Will NGO, former RA Ombudsperson, Zaruhi Postanjian,
representative of Lawyers for Human Rights NGO, and Avetik Ishkhanian,
Chairman of Helsinki Committee, four incidents having received public
resonance are evidence of such conduct of authorities.

The first was the closure of Zharangutiun party’s head office in
2006 March, the second the arrest of Zhamanak Yerevan daily’s editor
Arman Babajanian.

The next cases of violence and pressure were fixed in 2006 June when
Aravot and Chorrord Ishkhanutiun newspapers’ photocorrespondent Gagik
Shamshian was beaten and in December when Coordinator of In Defence
of Liberated Territories public initiative, Zhirayr Sefilian and
Hayrenik and Pativ party’s Political Board member Vardan Malkhasian
were arrested.

As lawyer Zaruhi Postanjian stated, the majority of persons persecuted
by the authorities once lived abroad or had foreign citizenship. He
reminded that Zharangutiun party leader Raffi Hovannisian was
U.S. citizen, Zhirayr Sefilian citizen of Lebanon and Arman Babajanian
had lived in U.S.