PACE SHOULD HOLD INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION IN ARMENIA – HUNGARIAN PACE MP

Trend News Agency
April 14 2008
Azerbaijan

France, Strasburg, 14 April /TrendNews corr A. Maharramli, I. Alizade/
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) should
hold independent investigations in Armenia regarding the riots
which emerged from the presidential election in the country which
involved the shooting and killing of people participating in the
opposition demonstrations. "The Armenian authorities should hold
independent investigations with the participation of the opposition
representatives. If Armenia does not carry out the investigation, PACE
will inevitably do that," Nemeth Zsolt, the Hungarian member of the
Christian-Democratic Party of Europe, said at the PACE spring session.

On 19 February, Armenia held its presidential elections. According
to the final results of the Armenian Central Election Commission,
Serzh Sargsyan, the head of the Republican Party, won the elections
with 52.82% of votes (862,369).

On the morning of 2 March, President Robert Kocheryan decreed on
proclaiming an emergency situation in Armenia for 20 days which
was caused by the continuous demonstrations by supporters of
the presidential candidate Levon Ter-Petrosyan, who accused the
authorities of gerrymandering during the elections. The dispersal of
the demonstration by the police resulted in a confrontation.

According to the Armenian Health Ministry, the number of the victims
of the riot which took place in Yerevan on 1 March totalled thousands
with 9 dead from gunshot wounds.

Zsolt said that after the presidential elections, the peaceful
demonstrators were shot and 9 people died, 200 were arrested as
political prisoners. After that emergency situation was announced in
the country.

"The worst thing is that the Armenian authorities passed the
Law on Freedom of Assembly without applying for the opinion of
the CE Venice Commission. Now, the Armenian opposition urges for
repeated presidential elections to be held and does not recognize
the legitimacy of the current head of State. The actions should be
taken at a political level," Zsolt said.

"The Christian Democratic Party of Europe believes that CE should
drastically change the election supervision system. The recent
elections in Armenia confirmed the necessity of changing and the
re-consideration of the CE election supervision system," he said.