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  • ANKARA: Armenian Authorities Continue To Send Mixed Signals

    Journal of Turkish Weekly, Turkey
    May 31 2008


    Analysis: Armenian Authorities Continue To Send Mixed Signals

    Saturday , 31 May 2008


    Three months after the disputed February 19 ballot in which former
    Armenian Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian was elected to succeed Robert
    Kocharian as president, and despite repeated expressions of concern by
    the U.S. government and the EU, courts continue to hand down, or to
    uphold, prison terms on supporters of former President and defeated
    presidential candidate Levon Ter-Petrossian.

    On May 23, Armenia's Court of Appeals upheld three-year prison
    sentences handed down to Ter-Petrossian supporters Simon Amirkhanian
    and Samvel Karapetian, who were sentenced last month for alleged
    interference in the vote count at a polling station in Gavar, RFE/RL's
    Armenian Service reported.

    The court similarly upheld verdicts against three Ter-Petrossian
    election campaign activists sentenced to between 18 and 30 months in
    prison on charges of assaulting a pro-government heckler during a
    campaign rally in the town of Talin, and on May 26 against Hovannes
    Harutiunian, a Ter-Petrossian proxy sentenced to 18 months in prison
    on charges of illegal possession of ammunition.

    The Abovian municipal court on May 23 sentenced Sos Gevorgian to one
    year in jail on charges of illegal possession of weapons, RFE/RL's
    Armenian Service reported. Gevorgian's uncle Sasun Mikaelian is one of
    three opposition parliamentarians charged with plotting to overthrow
    the Armenian leadership in the wake of the disputed February 19 vote.

    Meanwhile, the Armenian authorities are planning to deport Zhirayr
    Sefilian, a prominent Lebanese-Armenian oppositionist jailed in late
    2006. Sefilian and a fellow Karabakh war veteran, Vartan Malkhasian,
    were arrested in December 2006 just days after founding an unofficial
    pressure group opposed to resolving the Karabakh conflict through
    territorial concessions to Azerbaijan.

    They too were charged with calling for the violent overthrow of the
    Armenian government. A Yerevan court found Malkhasian guilty of that
    charge and sentenced him in August 2007 to two years in prison;
    Sefilian was acquitted on that charge but found guilty and sentenced
    to 18 months in prison for illegal possession of arms. His sentence is
    due to end on June 9.

    Both Sefilian and Malkhasian claim they were jailed for their pledge
    to fight to prevent fraud during the May 2007 parliamentary elections,
    and both subsequently endorsed Ter-Petrossian's presidential
    bid. Sefilian's defense lawyer Vahe Grigorian told RFE/RL's Armenian
    Service that deporting Sefilian would be illegal as he has two
    underage children. Sefilian has appealed to Bako Sahakian, president
    of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, to grant him political
    asylum there, according to Arminfo on May 22.

    The Armenian Revolutionary Federation--Dashnaktsutiun (HHD), one of
    the four parties represented in the coalition government, has informed
    President Sarkisian of its objections to the decision, first to deny
    Sefilian citizenship of the Republic of Armenia, which he has twice
    applied for, and then to deport him, HHD bureau head Hrant Markarian
    told journalists in Yerevan on May 27, Noyan Tapan reported. On May
    28, Armenia's Administrative Court rejected the police request to
    endorse Sefilian's deportation on the grounds that it was incorrectly
    phrased, according to Noyan Tapan.

    Meeting on May 24 with President Sarkisian in Yerevan, three visiting
    members of the U.S. House of Representatives -- Adam Schiff (Democrat,
    California), Wayne Gilchrest (Republican, Maryland), and Allyson
    Schwartz (Democrat, Pennsylvania), all of them members of the House
    Democracy Assistance Commission -- expressed their shared concern
    about the ongoing postelection crackdown, RFE/RL's Armenian Service
    reported on May 26.

    "We are concerned with the problems that occurred during the election,
    the violence that occurred after the election," Schiff told RFE/RL
    after the talks. "We consider ourselves very strong friends of
    Armenia. We want a good and successful future for Armenia, a
    democratic Armenia.... So we are here to try to assess the situation
    and talk with the Armenian government about how we can help move the
    government further in the direction of democracy," he said.

    Specifically, Schiff stressed U.S. concerns that at least some of
    those detained and sentenced in the wake of the postelection protests
    and the violent clashes on March 1-2 in Yerevan between police and
    security forces and Ter-Petrossian supporters were targeted purely
    because of their political affiliation. "We've raised concern about
    the detention of anyone who was detained for political reasons, and we
    certainly hope that the government addresses these issues," he
    said. "No one is advocating that people that committed violent crimes
    be released or not be subject to trial. But people should not be
    detained or put to trial for merely expressing their views."

    The pro-Ter-Petrossian daily "Haykakan zhamanak" noted on May 24 that
    U.S. President George W. Bush has still not congratulated Sarkisian on
    his election as president.

    The overall pattern of repression has, however, been tempered by two
    positive moves on the part of the authorities. On May 23, Sarkisian's
    national-security adviser, Garnik Isagulian, told RFE/RL's Armenian
    Service that Ter-Petrossian will be invited to nominate a
    representative to Sarkisian's planned public chamber, which will
    comprise both pro-government and opposition politicians and will focus
    on key domestic and foreign-policy issues. Isagulian said he would
    call Ter-Petrossian's office personally "and try to agree terms with
    them," and then, assuming the invitation was not rejected out of hand,
    meet personally with Ter-Petrossian's staff to repeat the offer.

    But Levon Zurabian, Ter-Petrossian's former presidential spokesman,
    told RFE/RL the same day that Ter-Petrossian will not embark on any
    talks with the authorities as long as his supporters remain in jail,
    as doing so would mean that "the authorities have drawn us into the
    hostage trade...they would seek to extract a concession from us in
    exchange for the release of every hostage."

    On May 26, state prosecutors agreed in what was termed a goodwill
    gesture to release opposition Nor Zhamanakner (New Times) party leader
    Aram Karapetian from pretrial detention, RFE/RL's Armenian Service
    reported. Karapetian was arrested on February 24 for having circulated
    DVDs on which he posed incriminating questions to both Kocharian and
    Sarkisian, and hospitalized with heart problems on May 15.

    May 30, 2008
    RFE/RL
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