Monday, Armenian Lawyers On Strike Over ‘Police Violence’ • Anush Mkrtchian Armenia - Lawyers demonstrate in Yerevan, . Dozens of court hearings in Armenia were cancelled on Monday as lawyers went on strike to show support for their colleagues allegedly beaten up by police officers. One of the lawyers, Karen Alaverdian, claims to have been subjected to “undue physical force” after trying to stop several policemen kicking and punching his client at the police headquarters of Yerevan’s central Kentron district earlier this month. Armenia’s Investigative Committee effectively denied the allegations on June 13, saying that Alaverdian himself shoved and even hit the officers in a bid to free the criminal suspect. They had to briefly detain the lawyer, the law-enforcement agency said, adding that he was rightly charged with “hooliganism” and obstruction of legitimate police actions. Armenia’s Chamber of Advocates voiced support for Alaverdian and demanded a proper investigation into the incident. The national bar association organized the one-day strike to protest against what it sees as an official cover-up of the incident. Dozens of its members marched to the Kentron police headquarters to demand the sacking of its chief officer. “We believe that if the police service does not react strongly to this case it will implicitly take full responsibility for this situation,” said one of the protesters. Armenia - Lawyer Karen Alaverdian speaks during a news conference, June 13, 2023. Two other lawyers claimed to have been ill-treated at another Yerevan police station in February while representing a teenage criminal suspect. Their allegations were likewise denied by the police and the Investigative Committee. The chairman of the Chamber of Advocates, Simon Babayan, decried the fact that the police have not even suspended or taken other disciplinary action against any officers accused of assaulting the lawyers. He said prosecutors and investigators dealing with those incidents must also face disciplinary proceedings. The Office of the Prosecutor-General announced, meanwhile, that it has assigned the probe of Alaverdian’s alleged beating to the National Security Service. Alaverdian welcomed that decision, saying he hopes that the incident will now be investigated in earnest. “This problem is not so much about me or my client as about addressing the causes of all this and reviewing state mechanisms for countering torture,” the lawyer told journalists. Human rights activists say that ill-treatment of criminal suspects remains widespread in Armenia despite sweeping law-enforcement reforms promised by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s government. As recently as on June 22, a man in Yerevan claimed that the Investigative Committee chief, Argishti Kyaramian, personally tortured and threatened to kill him following his arrest on June 17. A spokesman for Kyaramian denied the allegations. Yerevan Insists On ‘International Mechanism’ For Karabakh • Ruzanna Stepanian • Heghine Buniatian Armenia - Parliament speaker Alen SImonian chairs a session of the National Assembly, November 24, 2022. Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks will lead nowhere if Baku persists in rejecting an “international mechanism” for dialogue with Nagorno-Karabakh’s leadership, Armenian parliament speaker Alen Simonian said on Monday. Yerevan has been pressing for such a “mechanism” during ongoing negotiations on an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty, saying that it is essential for protecting “the rights and security” of Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian population. Foreign Ministers Jeyhun Bayramov of Azerbaijan and Ararat Mirzoyan of Armenia are scheduled to start a new round of those talks in Washington on Tuesday. Bayramov made clear late last week that Baku will not agree to any special security arrangements for the Karabakh Armenians. Simonian played down Bayramov’s statement, expressing confidence that “they will agree to that at some point.” “I think that even now this is done for setting the bar high ahead of the negotiations and … then taking a step back,” he told journalists. But Simonian went on to warn: “If this issue is not discussed and solved it will mean that most of the negotiations can be considered meaningless.” Azerbaijani leaders have repeatedly ruled out any internationally mediated talks with Stepanakert, with President Ilham Aliyev saying in April that the Karabakh Armenians “will either live under Azerbaijani rule or leave” their homeland. Aliyev warned in late May that they must dissolve their government bodies and unconditionally accept Azerbaijani rule or risk fresh military action by Baku. Azerbaijan’s Defense Minister Zakir Hasanov echoed that threat in televised remarks publicized on Monday. “We do not rate highly the capabilities of illegal armed formations located in the Karabakh economic zone of Azerbaijan,” Hasanov told the Azerbaijani TV channel CBC. “We know their number, weapons, morale, and we know what they are capable of.” “If they resort to any provocations and illegal actions, then the problem of these illegal armed formations can be solved by a single corps of the Azerbaijani army and not even with full strength,” he said. Tensions along the Karabakh “line of contact” and the Armenian-Azerbaijani border have increased significantly over the past month, with the conflicting sides accusing each other of violating the ceasefire on a daily basis. The Armenian government said earlier this month that Baku may be gearing up for another attack on Nagorno-Karabakh. Red Cross Resumes Medical Evacuations From Karabakh • Artak Khulian Nagorno-Karabakh - Red Cross vehicles are seen outside Stepanakert, January 4, 2023. Ten days after blocking the movement of humanitarian convoys through the Lachin corridor, Azerbaijan allowed the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Sunday to resume the evacuation of seriously ill persons from Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. “We resumed yesterday the transfer of patients to Armenia through the Lachin corridor,” Eteri Musayelian, a spokeswoman for the ICRC office in Stepanakert, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Monday. “We evacuated 15 patients yesterday and 16 others today.” Videos released by Azerbaijani government-controlled media showed those patients, family members accompanying them and ICRC vehicles undergoing meticulous checks at an Azerbaijani checkpoint controversially set up in the corridor in April. According to health authorities in Stepanakert, nearly 190 Karabakh residents were waiting to be evacuated to Armenian hospitals for urgent treatment as of Saturday. The medical evacuations have been carried out only by the ICRC ever since Azerbaijan stopped last December commercial traffic though the sole road connecting Karabakh to Armenia. Baku blocked them as well as Russian peacekeepers’ food supplies to Karabakh on June 15 following a shooting incident near the Azerbaijani checkpoint. The evacuations resumed one day after Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov met with an ICRC delegation in Baku. The situation in the Lachin corridor was reportedly high on the meeting’s agenda. Gegham Stepanian, Karabakh’s human rights ombudsman, linked the development to serious concerns expressed by Russia, the European Union and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) at the tightening of the Azerbaijani blockade, which aggravated food shortages in Karabakh. “But we cannot consider [the international pressure] fully effective because although the transport of patients and medicine through the Red Cross has been restored, 120,000 people are still denied access to food and other essential items,” said Stepanian. Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL Copyright (c) 2023 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc. 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.