ELDR APPEAL TO ARMENIAN AUTHORITIES

lrahos16930.html
15:52:52 – 23/02/2010

Last week, ELDR Vice President Markus Loning (of LI Full Member FDP)
called on Armenia’s government to release the political prisoners
that remain imprisoned for protesting against what they feel were
falsified elections in 2008. In a statement he said that "it is not
acceptable that a member state of the Council of Europe and the
Eastern Partnership and a major recipient of aid from European
tax payers’ money is keeping people in prison for political
reasons." The 2008 presidential elections have been criticised by
international observers. Several organisations have expressed concerns
about the overall political situation in Armenia tilting towards
authoritarianism. However, when confronting a high-level audience in
London, which included LI Secretary General Emil Kirjas and LI Officer
Amanda Sundell, Armenian President Serg Sargsyan preferred to discuss
geopolitics and the relations between Armenia, Turkey and Azerbaijan.

The Eastern Partnership region will this spring be under special LI
scrutiny, as Bureau members and the Secretariat prepare to attend an
FNF Conference on the issue in Berlin 26-28 February 2010.