NO POLITICAL PRISONERS TODAY

A1+
[05:28 pm] 25 September, 2007

"In case Levon Ter-Petrosyan runs for presidency, the fight during the
presidential elections will be ideological, it will turn to strategic
combat from tactical one", said Vahan Hovhannisyan, member of the
"Armenian Revolutionary Federation" (Dashnaktsunyun).

Mr Hovhannisyan did not like the speech of the first president, when
Ter-Petrosyan pointed out only the negative occurrences, ignoring the
positive. According to Vahan Hovhannisyan, the ARF has always talked
about shortcomings, but has always pointed out the positive things. Mr
Hovhannisyan did not understand the part of Ter-Petrosyan’s speech
where the latter presented the NKR unsettled problem as the result
of the situation.

"He said that Karabakh problem has no solution, then what new does
he have to say to the public? What will he do?"

Vahan Hovhannisyan did not agree with the allegations that today
the economic state of the country was bad coming out of subjective
reasons, while in 1998 it was connected with objective reasons – war,
blockade etc.

"The war was over in 1994 not in 1998, but our lights were not
switched on the next day of the war and energy did not penetrate into
our homes". He also reminded Khosrov Harutyunyan’s confession when
he was the prime minister that "the objective reason of crisis was
20 percent, whereas more than 70 percent was the result of inner,
ignorant and untalented policy".

Opposing Ter-Petrosyan’s assessments, Vahan Hovhannisyan noticed
that there were no political prisoners today, which means, when he
was accused of appeals for overthrowing the authorities by force, he
was a political prisoner, but when someone else did it, he was not
a political prisoner. To this question Vahan Hovhannisyan noticed,
that as regard to the appeals, he never considered himself a political
prisoner.

He added that during this period no representatives of political
parties or mass media were kept imprisoned and people did not die in
prisons, no editorial offices or offices of parties were smashed to
smithereens and no party members were kept isolated.

When the journalists reminded 12 April cases, Vahan Honhannisyan said:
"We did not allow any detainees after 12 April". It is worthwhile
to remind that hundreds of people appeared in isolation sells on 12
April night, while 4 members of "Republican" party were kept detained
for two months.

Mr Hovhannisyan talked about the freedom of speech partially: "The
situation is not that ugly, but it is not good either". In Vahan
Hovhannisyan’s opinion "situation in Armenia is not very bad".

Vahan Hovhannisyan also noticed that he did not admit the policy of
the opposition which adopted the authorities into its agenda, and
the restricting policy of authorities which prompted the opposition
to it and isolated it.

AGAINST PREDETERMINED EXIT

Vahan Hovhannisyan announced that the ARF was against predetermined
exit of elections, since the nation was against such elections and
the passive attitude of the nation he motivated by the approach that
was tried to be implanted in the society: "We do not admit the path
of predetermined outcomes, only the nation has the right to decide
the political path".

Answering to the question of "A1+" whether the ARF considered the
same way when the outcome of the constitutional referendum was already
predetermined, Mr Hovhannisyan noted that the result of the referendum
had never been predetermined and they even feared that it might fail.