MORE OPPOSITION LEADERS ARRESTED
Radio Liberty
March 10 2008
Czech Republic
Two more close associates of former President Levon Ter-Petrosian
were arrested on Monday as the Armenian authorities continued their
unprecedented crackdown on the opposition resulting from last month’s
disputed presidential election. A senior U.S. diplomat, meanwhile,
warned them against jailing the opposition leader as well.
The latest detainees are Aleksandr Arzumanian, a former foreign
minister and Ter-Petrosian’s election campaign manager, and Ararat
Zurabian, chairman of the former ruling Armenian Pan-National Movement
(HHSh). Their lawyer, Hovik Arsenian, said they are likely to be
charged with seeking to "usurp power" in the wake of the February
19 election.
Arsenian spoke to RFE/RL by phone from the headquarters of Armenia’s
National Security Service (NSS) where his clients were interrogated
and kept in custody as of late evening. He dismissed as baseless and
politically motivated the criminal cases brought against these and
other prominent opposition politicians close to Ter-Petrosian.
Arzumanian’s and Zurabian’s detention raised to at least 86 the number
of Ter-Petrosian supporters jailed in the past two weeks.
Among them are two opposition members of parliament. Two other
parliamentarians stripped of their immunity from prosecution have
gone into hiding.
According to a spokeswoman for the Office of the Prosecutor-General,
Sona Truzian, 73 oppositionists have already been formally charged with
plotting a coup d’etat, organizing and participating in "mass riots"
and other grave crimes. The charges mainly stem from the March 1 deadly
clashes in Yerevan between riot police and thousands of opposition
supporters demanding a re-run of what they see as a rigged election.
"The political orientation of these individuals doesn’t matter to
the investigating body," Truzian said, referring to the detainees.
"Investigators are bringing accusations against those people who
organized and took part in mass riots and other events aimed at
undermining constitutional order."
The crackdown, which is not confined to Yerevan, is not letting up
despite the international community’s growing calls for the lifting
of the state of emergency in the capital and a dialogue between the
Armenian authorities and the Ter-Petrosian-led opposition.
"We don’t believe that further crackdown, further arrests, are the
right way to go," Kurt Volker, the U.S. acting assistant secretary of
state, for European and Eurasian Affairs, told RFE/RL from Washington
on Monday. "We think that what needs to be done is to move toward
lifting the state of emergency, assuring freedom of the media, assuring
the freedom of assembly, assuring the operation of political parties,
so that Armenia can walk back from this political crisis."
Also expressing concern at the wave of arrests was Joseph Pennington,
the U.S. charge d’affaires in Yerevan. "We have made clear to the
Armenian authorities that while we certainly recognize the right and
the obligation of the authorities to arrest and prosecute those who
were involved directly in violent activities last weekend, there is
a distinction that needs to be made between those people on the one
hand and those who may have expressed views that were bothersome to
the authorities," Pennington told RFE/RL.
"We strongly discourage those kinds of arrests that could be
interpreted as political arrests and think that would not contribute
to stability and reduction in tensions," he said.
Pennington also warned that the authorities will only heighten the
post-election tensions in Armenia if they follow through on their
threats to arrest and prosecute Ter-Petrosian. "We do not think that is
a step that would help to ease the situation here," he said. "We don’t
think it would be the right way. We don’t think it would useful. We
think it would probably increase tensions more than anything else."
President Robert Kocharian said last week that "many in Armenia"
believe that Ter-Petrosian too should be punished for the violent
standoff that left at least seven protesters and one police officer
dead. Prosecutor-General Aghvan Hovsepian likewise did not rule out the
possibility of the ex-president’s arrest, saying that the opposition
actions were "managed from one center."
Justice Minister Gevorg Danielian told the AFP news agency on Monday
that law-enforcment authorities "already have sufficient evidence"
to prosecute Ter-Petrosian. "The investigation will show which exact
charges will be brought against him," Danielian said. "He has crossed
from the political sphere to the criminal sphere."
Ter-Petrosian has been under effective house arrest since the violent
break-up earlier on March 1 of his supporters’ non-stop sit-in in
Yerevan’s Liberty Square.