ARMENIA: ARRESTS CONTINUE
By Gegham Vardanian

Institute for War and Peace Reporting
March 26 2008
UK

Opposition complains of continued harassment following end of state
of emergency.

Despite the lifting of the state of emergency in the Armenian capital
Yerevan, the country’s opposition says dozens of its activists remain
in custody, with a greater number facing criminal charges.

Among 135 people in detention are two members of parliament, Myasnik
Malkhasian and Hakob Hakobian, and former foreign minister Aleksandr
Arzumanian.

Former prime minister Aram Sarkisian, the head of the opposition
Republic Party, was accused on March 25 of organising unauthorised
demonstrations and attempting to seize power. He is not in custody
but is not being allowed to leave the country.

On March 26, Arshak Banuchian, the deputy director of Armenia’s ancient
manuscripts institute, the Matenadaran, and a former colleague of
ex-president and opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosian, was detained
on charges of disturbing public order.

Most of the charges against opposition leaders relate to the violence
in Yerevan on March 1, in which at least eight people died. While the
opposition accuses the government of violently suppressing peaceful
protests, the authorities say they were acting to stop an attempted
seizure of power.

Thomas Hammarberg, human rights commissioner for the Council of Europe,
has recommended that "a comprehensive inquiry be established into the
events of 1 March" and that the enquiry be "independent, impartial,
transparent and perceived as credible by the whole population".

Media restrictions have now been lifted in Yerevan, but the city
is still tense and Freedom Square around the city’s opera-house,
the meeting place of the opposition, is often ringed with police,
especially in the evenings.

At a March 20 press conference, outgoing president Robert Kocharian
said the state of emergency imposed on March 1 after the violence had
served a useful purpose. "Immediately after it was introduced, the
situation calmed down, an opportunity was created for consolidating
that stabilisation process with concrete actions," he said.

Opposition activists have been treated with varying degrees of
harshness. Many have been detained and then released without charge.

Others have been questioned, charged and released. Ter-Petrosian is
still under de facto house arrest with visitors to his house being
checked and his government guards not allowing him to go out "on
grounds of security".

One of those detained on March 1 and later released was Armen Ohanian,
who worked as a representative for Ter-Petrosian during the elections,
and who helped lead the subsequent street protests.

"I was walking down Abovian Street [in central Yerevan] with two
colleagues when we were stopped by two law-enforcement officials
and told to follow them," he told IWPR. "We did not resist and they
didn’t say on what grounds they were stopping us and where they were
taking us."

The three men were handcuffed and taken to a police station. Ohanian
said that on the way, the policemen mocked his glasses and called him
"Shurik" in reference to a bespectacled hero of Soviet cinema comedy.

In the police station, Ohanian’s demand for a lawyer was refused and
he was not allowed to make any telephone calls. He was informed that
he had been detained for "resisting the police".

"One of the bosses called Abrahamian said that in the record of my
detention it was written that I had hit the policemen," he said. "The
policeman who arrested me said that he could not write that as he did
not want to be in a stupid position in court and give false testimony."

Ohanian said that the policemen treated him normally when their boss
was not in the room but when he wasn’t there they mocked him and
promised to beat him. He spent the night sleeping on chairs in the
police station. He was taken to the prosecutor’s office on March 2
and then released.

Ohanian lodged a written complaint with Armenia’s human rights
ombudsman Armen Harutiunian.

Harutiunian’s press secretary Grigor Grigorian said that he received
more than a dozen complaints about illegal actions and beatings by
the police since March 1. "Some of them have been confirmed and some
haven’t," said Grigorian.

Detainees have complained both to representatives of the ombudsman
and to Hammarberg that they were beaten during their arrests and
while in detention.

"Physical harm has been recorded with 12 of the accused and expert
reports have been commissioned to explain the reason for this,"
said Sona Truzian, press secretary of the prosecutor general.

"Violation of the rights of detainees is happening everywhere," said
Mikael Danielian, human rights activist and head of Armenia’s Helsinki
Association. "They are invited orally to come to the police station for
a conversation but this conversation can last three hours or 20 days."

Danielian said that detainees from the provinces had suffered
especially badly from police abuse.

"In our cell was a boy from Hrazdan who they beat up," said detainee
Armen Ohanian. "They beat him up again in my presence when he tried
to answer back to a policeman who insulted him. One of them held him
and the other beat him."

Ohanian said that many detainees were taken home by friends or
relatives without any evidence being left that they had been arrested
in the first place.

A young man named Sedrak (not his real name) was arrested along with
five of his friends on the morning of March 2, the day after the
street clashes in Yerevan. They had taken part in the opposition
demonstration outside the French embassy. They were held for the
entire day in a police station.

"Our parents paid the police 100,000 drams (330 US dollars) for each
of us for us to be released," said Sedrak.

Outside Yerevan, opposition supporters also claim harassment.

On March 11, Armen Hovannisian, an official in the administration in
Armenia’s northern Lori region, was sacked from his job because he
had taken part in rallies in support of Ter-Petrosian.

In the written explanation for Hovannisian’s dismissal, his boss,
Ashot Manukian, wrote that it was because of "violations of the
principle of political balance by a civil servant".

Hovannisian said that he is one of the founders of Ter-Petrosian’s
Armenian National Movement party which used to govern Armenia
and campaigned on behalf of the former president. He says that he
deliberately took leave during and after the election campaign in
order to engage in political activity.

Asked why Hovannisian was not allowed to campaign for the opposition,
when the majority of the Lori administration were members of the
pro-government Republican Party, and took part in rallies in support
of official presidential candidate Serzh Sarkisian, Manukian replied,
"But this is the governing party and it represents the authorities,
that is natural."

In Yerevan, ordinary opposition supporters say they are still
suffering harassment on the street, despite the lifting of the state
of emergency.

Street demonstrations are still banned, so instead opposition activists
have taken to staging "walks" through the streets of Yerevan holding
portraits of detainees. The police in their turn have started detaining
participants in these events. Senior Yerevan police official Valery
Osipian said that two men detained on March 24 had been "breaching
public order".

Gegham Vardanyan is a journalist with Internews in Yerevan. Naira
Bulghadarian in Vanadzor contributed to this article.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress