ARMENIAN OMBUDSMAN REJECTS OPPOSITION CRITICISM

Trend News Agency
Jan 9 2009
Azerbaijan

Armenia’s state human rights defender, Armen Harutiunian, dismissed
opposition criticism of his recent activities as a manifestation of
"neo-Bolshevik" thinking which he believes is shared by the government,
reported Armenialiberty.

Harutiunian has come under opposition fire over his reaction to
allegations that at least three of the opposition members arrested
following last February’s presidential election were beaten up in
Yerevan’s Nubarashen prison on December 23. Harutiunian expressed
serious concern about the allegations, leading President Serzh
Sarkisian to order a special inquiry at Nubarashen.

The ombudsman agreed to take part in it, a move that prompted criticism
from former President Levon Ter-Petrosian’s Armenian National Congress
(HAK). In a statement on Wednesday, the opposition alliance dismissed
the probe as a smokescreen for a government cover-up of the alleged
torture. It said the authorities should instead launch criminal
proceedings against the prison administration.

A separate statement issued by 42 arrested oppositionists went further,
branding Harutiunian as an advocate of the "kleptocratic regime"
and demanding his resignation. "His main goal today is to cover
up blatant human rights violations and the existence of political
prisoners in Armenia and thereby spare the regime sanctions [by the
Council of Europe,]" they charged.

The pro-Ter-Petrosian daily "Haykakan Zhamanak" claimed that
Harutiunian has been offered the post of justice minister or
prosecutor-general in return for helping the Armenian authorities
avoid the sanctions.

Harutiunian brushed aside the allegations. "I just don’t know how
I can influence the Council of Europe to avoid imposing sanctions,"
he told RFE/RL. "May be they [the opposition] know."

Harutiunian said that both the opposition and the authorities have
put pressure on him since the March 1 deadly clashes in Yerevan. The
ombudsman strongly questioned the official version of those
events at the time, incurring the ire of outgoing President Robert
Kocharian. Armenia’s Office of the Prosecutor-General and Justice
Ministry subsequently issued lengthy reports designed to challenge his
judgment and justify the use of force against opposition protesters.

Harutiunian has also been critical of the arrests and controversial
trials of dozens of Ter-Petrosian loyalists, while declining to
refer to them as political prisoners. "In an atmosphere of political
intolerance and mutual hatred among various political camps, it
is normal that the prosecutor’s office says that the human rights
defender must be prosecuted and then some time later the Armenian
National Congress demands that he resign," he said. "I am used to
this to neo-Bolshevik notion that if your opinion doesn’t correspond
to ours then you are a bad guy," he added.

The HAK clarified later on Thursday that unlike most of the jailed
oppositionists, it did not demand Harutiunian’s resignation. A leading
member of the opposition alliance, Levon Zurabian, also told RFE/RL
that he has received a letter from another detainee, Vardges Gaspari,
claiming that the latter too was ill-treated by security officers on
December 23.

"This is related to the fact that the authorities are putting pressure
on political prisoners to send pardon requests to the presidential
administration," said Zurabian, "This practice is unacceptable."

The authorities did not immediately react to the claims. A spokesman
for the Justice Ministry department managing Armenia’s prisons said
only that the official inquiry into the alleged Nubarashen beatings
is still in progress.