Institute for War & Peace Reporting
Armenia: Arrests Continue
Opposition complains of continued harassment following end of state of
emergency.
By Gegham Vardanian in Yerevan (CRS No. 437 26-Mar-08)
Despite the lifting of the state of emergency in the Armenian capital
Yerevan, the country’s opposition says dozens of its activists remain in
custody, with a greater number facing criminal charges.
Among 135 people in detention are two members of parliament, Myasnik
Malkhasian and Hakob Hakobian, and former foreign minister Aleksandr
Arzumanian.
Former prime minister Aram Sarkisian, the head of the opposition Republic
Party, was accused on March 25 of organising unauthorised demonstrations and
attempting to seize power. He is not in custody but is not being allowed to
leave the country.
On March 26, Arshak Banuchian, the deputy director of Armenia’s ancient
manuscripts institute, the Matenadaran, and a former colleague of
ex-president and opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosian, was detained on
charges of disturbing public order.
Most of the charges against opposition leaders relate to the violence in
Yerevan on March 1, in which at least eight people died. While the
opposition accuses the government of violently suppressing peaceful
protests, the authorities say they were acting to stop an attempted seizure
of power.
Thomas Hammarberg, human rights commissioner for the Council of Europe, has
recommended that `a comprehensive inquiry be established into the events of
1 March’ and that the enquiry be `independent, impartial, transparent and
perceived as credible by the whole population’.
Media restrictions have now been lifted in Yerevan, but the city is still
tense and Freedom Square around the city’s opera-house, the meeting place of
the opposition, is often ringed with police, especially in the evenings.
At a March 20 press conference, outgoing president Robert Kocharian said the
state of emergency imposed on March 1 after the violence had served a useful
purpose. "Immediately after it was introduced, the situation calmed down, an
opportunity was created for consolidating that stabilisation process with
concrete actions," he said.
Opposition activists have been treated with varying degrees of harshness.
Many have been detained and then released without charge. Others have been
questioned, charged and released. Ter-Petrosian is still under de facto
house arrest with visitors to his house being checked and his government
guards not allowing him to go out `on grounds of security’.
One of those detained on March 1 and later released was Armen Ohanian, who
worked as a representative for Ter-Petrosian during the elections, and who
helped lead the subsequent street protests.
`I was walking down Abovian Street [in central Yerevan] with two colleagues
when we were stopped by two law-enforcement officials and told to follow
them,’ he told IWPR. `We did not resist and they didn’t say on what grounds
they were stopping us and where they were taking us.’
The three men were handcuffed and taken to a police station. Ohanian said
that on the way, the policemen mocked his glasses and called him `Shurik’ in
reference to a bespectacled hero of Soviet cinema comedy.
In the police station, Ohanian’s demand for a lawyer was refused and he was
not allowed to make any telephone calls. He was informed that he had been
detained for `resisting the police’.
`One of the bosses called Abrahamian said that in the record of my detention
it was written that I had hit the policemen,’ he said. `The policeman who
arrested me said that he could not write that as he did not want to be in a
stupid position in court and give false testimony.’
Ohanian said that the policemen treated him normally when their boss was not
in the room but when he wasn’t there they mocked him and promised to beat
him. He spent the night sleeping on chairs in the police station. He was
taken to the prosecutor’s office on March 2 and then released.
Ohanian lodged a written complaint with Armenia’s human rights ombudsman
Armen Harutiunian.
Harutiunian’s press secretary Grigor Grigorian said that he received more
than a dozen complaints about illegal actions and beatings by the police
since March 1. `Some of them have been confirmed and some haven’t,’ said
Grigorian.
Detainees have complained both to representatives of the ombudsman and to
Hammarberg that they were beaten during their arrests and while in
detention.
`Physical harm has been recorded with 12 of the accused and expert reports
have been commissioned to explain the reason for this,’ said Sona Truzian,
press secretary of the prosecutor general.
`Violation of the rights of detainees is happening everywhere,’ said Mikael
Danielian, human rights activist and head of Armenia’s Helsinki Association.
`They are invited orally to come to the police station for a conversation
but this conversation can last three hours or 20 days.’
Danielian said that detainees from the provinces had suffered especially
badly from police abuse.
`In our cell was a boy from Hrazdan who they beat up,’ said detainee Armen
Ohanian. `They beat him up again in my presence when he tried to answer back
to a policeman who insulted him. One of them held him and the other beat
him.’
Ohanian said that many detainees were taken home by friends or relatives
without any evidence being left that they had been arrested in the first
place.
A young man named Sedrak (not his real name) was arrested along with five of
his friends on the morning of March 2, the day after the street clashes in
Yerevan. They had taken part in the opposition demonstration outside the
French embassy. They were held for the entire day in a police station.
`Our parents paid the police 100,000 drams (330 US dollars) for each of us
for us to be released,’ said Sedrak.
Outside Yerevan, opposition supporters also claim harassment.
On March 11, Armen Hovannisian, an official in the administration in Armenia’s
northern Lori region, was sacked from his job because he had taken part in
rallies in support of Ter-Petrosian.
In the written explanation for Hovannisian’s dismissal, his boss, Ashot
Manukian, wrote that it was because of `violations of the principle of
political balance by a civil servant’.
Hovannisian said that he is one of the founders of Ter-Petrosian’s Armenian
National Movement party which used to govern Armenia and campaigned on
behalf of the former president. He says that he deliberately took leave
during and after the election campaign in order to engage in political
activity.
Asked why Hovannisian was not allowed to campaign for the opposition, when
the majority of the Lori administration were members of the pro-government
Republican Party, and took part in rallies in support of official
presidential candidate Serzh Sarkisian, Manukian replied, `But this is the
governing party and it represents the authorities, that is natural.’
In Yerevan, ordinary opposition supporters say they are still suffering
harassment on the street, despite the lifting of the state of emergency.
Street demonstrations are still banned, so instead opposition activists have
taken to staging `walks’ through the streets of Yerevan holding portraits of
detainees. The police in their turn have started detaining participants in
these events. Senior Yerevan police official Valery Osipian said that two
men detained on March 24 had been `breaching public order’.
Gegham Vardanyan is a journalist with Internews in Yerevan. Naira
Bulghadarian in Vanadzor contributed to this article.