EVICTION-THREATENED RESIDENTS PROTEST ‘GOVERNMENT HARASSMENT’
By Karine Kalantarian
Radio Liberty, Czech Republic
July 3 2007
More than a hundred people facing eviction from their Yerevan homes
slated for demolition gathered outside President Robert Kocharian’s
office on Tuesday to protest against their alleged harassment by a
powerful security agency.
The protesters reside in Yerevan’s few remaining old neighborhoods
that are due to be torn down as part of a massive government-approved
redevelopment going on in the city center. Unlike hundreds of other
families whose houses have already been demolished, many of those
residents do not officially own their houses and will not necessarily
be compensated for their loss.
They claim that municipal authorities demand huge fees in return for
granting them title to their properties. The Yerevan municipality
promised last year to do this free of charge in some of the
neighborhoods concerned.
Organizers of the protest said that the National Security Service
(NSS) rounded up and questioned on Monday more than two dozen
eviction-threatened residents. Lena Chilingarian, a middle-aged
resident of the Kozern neighborhood, claimed to be one of them. "I
got really scared when people from the National Security Service came
to take me away," she said.
Chilingarian and other protesters allegedly questioned by the NSS
said law-enforcement officers specifically tried to get them to
give incriminating testimony against Samvel Mkrtchian, head of the
non-governmental organization Community and Right championing their
cause. They said they refused to testify that he is doing so for money.
The NSS already arrested on controversial fraud charges in 2005 a
human rights lawyer who had helped other evicted families sue the
Armenian government at the European Court of Human Rights. The lawyer,
Vahe Grigorian, was released several months later.
The demonstrators feared that Mkrtchian, whose mobile phone was not
reachable for two days, was also arrested by the former KGB. However,
the activist denied this as he joined the protest later on.
Still, Mkrtchian claimed that municipality officials have told him
that the NSS is "dealing with you." He said he is constantly being
followed by unknown individuals and fears for the safety of his
wife and children. "Their goal is to sabotage activities of the
non-governmental organization Community and Right," he told RFE/RL.
The protesters, meanwhile, dispersed after receiving what organizers
described assurances by officials from Kocharian’s staff that the
NSS will not disturb them anymore.