Lragir, Armenia
Oct 12 2007
COE HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSIONER WILL TOUCH UPON ARTICLE 301
Before bidding farewell to Armenia Thomas Hammarberg, CoE Human
Rights Commissioner, held a news conference on October 11. He was
asked if there are political prisoners in Armenia. The reporter who
asked the question mentioned Arman Babajanyan, Jirair Sefilyan,
Vardan Malkhasyan, since Thomas Hammarberg met with them over his
five days stay in Armenia.
Hammarberg said he used to be the secretary general of Amnesty
International and they spent hours on the definition of a political
prisoner and concluded that in practice the term is not useful for
reaching definite results. Instead he says they prefer the term
`prisoner of conscience’. He says they discussed this issue with
Andrey Sakharov how to define people who should not be put to prison
for the simple reason that they are not wrongdoers.
Nevertheless, he answered this question in general, in parts
theoretical observations. According to Thomas Hammarberg, some crimes
viewed as so-called political crime involve violence, and in some
cases he says they cannot tell governments why they are keeping the
person in prison even though that person used violence but it is
obvious that that person was arrested for political reasons.
He says it is another issue if there are people in prison who should
not be there. He says this is the case when he tries to focus on how
the system of justice works. He pointed to torture to extort a
written confession, and this confession is offered to the court as
evidence, and as a result the person is put to prison. He says if the
crime that the person committed has a political context, the person
should be called a political criminal, if there was another motive,
the person should not be called a political prisoner. Another problem
observed in different countries is disproportionate sentence when a
person is sentenced to a more severe punishment than in case this
person were not a political activist. Thomas Hammarberg said they
have studied some cases but not many, and declined to speak about
separate cases during the news conference.
The CoE human rights commissioner said his report on the state of
human rights in Armenia will also touch upon Article 301 of the crime
code which provides for imprisonment for appeals for a violent coup.
Jirair Sefilyan and Vardan Malkhasyan were arrested on this article.
Thomas Hammarberg thinks the legislation meting out punishment for
writing or saying something should be decriminalized. However, he
declined to speak in more detail about the article saying that he
would prefer studying it first. Hammarberg only said the report will
also touch upon this article.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
