ARMENIAN POLITICAL PRISONERS RELEASED IN AMNESTY
Emil Danielyan
Jamestown Foundation
Eurasia Daily Monitor
June 29, 2009
Armenian authorities have begun releasing dozens of political
prisoners more than 15 months after suppressing massive opposition
demonstrations against the official results of a disputed presidential
election. They have ensured, however, that not all jailed supporters
of the top opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosian are set free under
a general amnesty declared on June 19. President Serzh Sarksyan’s
intention to keep more than a dozen of them behind bars is a measure
of his self-confidence, resulting from opposition setbacks and Western
support for his foreign policy.
Officially, the amnesty has little connection with the February 2008
presidential election and the ensuing deadly violence in Yerevan. It
will affect approximately 2,000 individuals, or nearly half Armenia’s
prison population, serving sentences for various crimes. According to
the Justice Minister Gevorg Danielian, around 500 convicts will walk
free in the coming weeks, while the others will have their sentences
shortened (Aravot, June 20).
Few doubt that the measure is primarily a face-saving way of freeing
more than 50 opposition members and supporters arrested in the wake of
the troubled vote. The vast majority of them were jailed in connection
with the March 1, 2008 clashes in Yerevan between the security forces
and opposition protesters that left ten people dead and more than 200
others injured. Many received prison sentences solely on the basis of
police testimony. The authorities claim that the "mass riots" were
part of an attempted coup d’etat by Ter-Petrosian. However, neither
the opposition leader, who had served as Armenia’s first president
from 1991-1998, nor any of his associates have been prosecuted on
corresponding charges. The official theory of the unrest looked even
more far-fetched after the authorities dropped the controversial coup
charges against seven senior opposition figures in late March 2009.
Under the terms of an amnesty bill drafted by Sarksyan and approved
by parliament on June 19, only 35 jailed oppositionists are expected
to be released. The authorities freed 15 of them on June 22. Those
included two opposition members of parliament and the former foreign
minister Aleksandr Arzumanian, who managed Ter-Petrosian’s presidential
election campaign (, June 22). The three men walked free
from courtrooms immediately after being sentenced, in separate trials,
to five years in prison for allegedly organizing the post-election
clashes. Four other opposition figures gained their freedom on June
23. One of them, Gagik Jahangirian, was sacked as Armenia’s deputy
prosecutor-general and arrested the day after proclaiming Ter-Petrosian
the rightful election winner at a February 22, 2008 rally in Yerevan.
Among approximately 15 oppositionists likely to stay in jail is Sasun
Mikaelian, another opposition lawmaker charged with organizing riots
as well as illegal arms possession. That he will not be freed was made
clear by Justice Minister Danielian even before Mikaelian received
an eight-year prison sentence on June 22 (, June 22). A
fourth opposition parliamentarian, Khachatur Sukiasian, went into
hiding and apparently fled the country to avoid arrest following the
March 2008 violence. The tricky language of the amnesty bill means
that Sukiasian as well as Nikol Pashinian, the fugitive editor of
the pro-opposition daily Haykakan Zhamanak, may well choose to stay
in hiding in the months and perhaps years to come.
The bill was overwhelmingly passed by the government-controlled
National Assembly just three days before the start of the
summer session of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly
(PACE). The PACE has repeatedly demanded the immediate release of
all oppositionists arrested on "seemingly artificial or politically
motivated charges," threatening to impose sanctions against Armenia. It
has backed down on those threats just as frequently, much to the dismay
of the Armenian opposition. The Strasbourg-based body took no punitive
action against Yerevan when it again discussed the political situation
in the South Caucasus state on June 24. Meeting in Strasbourg on June
22, the PACE’s monitoring committee reportedly welcomed the partial
opposition amnesty initiated by Sarksyan (RFE/RL’s Armenian service,
June 22).
The PACE’s stance reflects the West’s largely positive attitude
toward Armenia’s current leadership and the apparent skepticism
about the Ter-Petrosian-led opposition that in turn stem from
its geopolitical agenda in the region. Ever since taking office
in April 2008 Sarksyan has scored significant points in Western
capitals with his dramatic rapprochement with Turkey and readiness
to make concessions to Azerbaijan over Karabakh. That has enabled
him to minimize international criticism and even receive praise from
U.S. and European officials while holding political prisoners (their
number exceeded 100 at one point) and restricting civil liberties.
The only tangible loss suffered by the Sarksyan administration
internationally was a recent decision by the United States to cut about
$70 million in additional economic assistance to Armenia contingent
on democratic governance (Statement by the U.S. Millennium Challenge
Corporation, June 10). The U.S. State Department has also been highly
critical of the Armenian authorities’ human rights record and their
handling of the May 31 municipal elections in Yerevan. But both the
current and former U.S. administrations have been quite cautious in
pressing the Yerevan government to address their concerns. Washington
will likely tread even more carefully, now that it nears achieving
two key U.S. goals in the region: a Karabakh settlement and the
normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations.
The European Union, for its part, has been largely silent on
political developments in Armenia since the spring of 2008, despite
its claims of deepening its engagement in the South Caucasus. At
least in public, E.U. leaders have only heaped praise on Sarksyan
for his overtures toward Ankara and avoided any open criticism of
his domestic policies. They did not react to the Yerevan polls at
all. The E.U. has thus far done very little to promote democracy and
human rights in Armenia, and there are no indications that this will
change even after the country’s inclusion in the E.U.’s ambitious
Eastern Partnership program.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
