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AUTHORITIES -INDIGNANT AT- OMBUDSMAN’S REPORT
[08:00 pm] 06 June, 2008

-If the country’s leadership had solved the existing
problems, the March 1 events wouldn’t have occurred,-
Human Rights Defender Armen Harutiunian said at the
HZhK office on June 6.

The Ombudsman says his report was aimed at bringing up
the urgent problems and finding their solutions to
alleviate public tension.

Armen Harutiunian says he is well aware of his
liabilities and powers and has never exceeded his
authority as the Prosecutor General says.

Harutiunian says he didn’t make judgments, he simply
posed questions. -For instance, three people died
because the police had taken up obsolete arms against
people. Doesn’t a human rights defender have a right
to know the reasons? Why did the policemen take the
guns thrown on the grass ungloved? They were to prove
that the weapons belonged to the demonstrators,
weren’t they?

-Unless these questions remain unanswered people will
keep on circulating rumours as freedom of expression
and impartial investigation serve guarantees for the
establishment of a democratic country.-

-We come across cynicism at every pace in Armenia. But
I cannot understand the Prosecutor General’s cynicism
when he said the report had exited him to the bottom
of his heart. Ten people died on March 1. An action
was to have been taken on each case,- said HZhK board
member Ruzan Khachatrian.

Asked why the authorities, especially the Prosecutor
General and the Minister of Justice, -got indignant-
at the Ombudsman’s report, Armen Harutiunian said,
-Probably, I had raised right questions.-