Mediamax Agency, Armenia
Dec 27 2007
RIGHTS BODY HEAD SAYS POWER IN ARMENIA SEIZED BY OLIGARCHS
Yerevan, 27 December: "The year 2007 can be described ‘a year of an
aggressive seizure of the state’," the chairperson of the
Transparency International – Armenia organization, Amaliya
Kostandyan, told journalists in Yerevan today.
Kostandyan told a news conference in Yerevan that in Armenia one
could observe the seizure of all branches of power by a group of
oligarchs and that this phenomenon was characterized by experts and
international non-governmental organizations as "an aggressive
seizure of the state".
"The authorities are saying ahead of the [February presidential]
election that the Armenian opposition is weak, but in a country where
human rights are violated and there is no freedom of speech, there
can be no strong opposition," Kostandyan said.
The chairman of the Helsinki Committee of Armenia, Avetik Ishkhanyan,
said that one of the major problems in the country was the existence
of "political prisoners".
"Until recently political arrests in Armenia had ‘a seasonal
character’, prisoners were released after ‘tension had eased’, but
this time the case of political prisoners Zhirayr Sefilyan and Vardan
Malkhasyan [activists of the non-governmental Union of Armenian
Volunteers who have been jailed on coup charges] is being delayed,
which worries us very much," Ishkhanyan said.