Violations of Political Rights in Armenia. March-April 2004

Armenian authorities have broadly violated basic international civil and political human rights norms in their efforts to thwart protests against the government and the president, according to reports by Armenian human rights organizations and media. These oppressive policies are at variance with Armenia?s obligations as a participating State of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and as a member of the Council of Europe, and call into question the government?s commitment to the political values of these bodies. On the practical level, they sow seeds of further and more demonstrative political confrontations, and regional instability.

The International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) calls upon the Armenian presidential administration to reassess its approach to political dissent, and to support a full, independent investigation of recent state actions, in cooperation with experts from the OSCE and Council of Europe, and independent civil society monitors. The IHF offers its own assistance and cooperation in this process.

We summarize below the evidence of violations of freedom of assembly, of freedom of movement, of the freedom of the media, and of the persecution of political dissenters that have occurred.

Violations of the freedom of assembly

At the end of March the two main opposition parties, the Artarutyun (Justice) alliance and the National Unity Party (AMK), announced that they would stage a series of demonstrations in April. Their demand is that either President Robert Kocharyan resigns, or at least agrees to a confidence referendum, an idea that was floated by the Constitutional Court in the wake of last year's disputed presidential election, but since then rejected by the President and the parliamentary majority.

The first demonstration was conducted on 5 April, followed by a series of daily demonstrations starting with 9 April.

All the meetings and demonstrations of the opposition were arbitrarily declared "unauthorized" by the mayor?s office in Yerevan. For example regarding the planned demonstration on 9 April they informed the two organizers, the Artarutyun Alliance and the National Unity Party, that the holding of protest meetings at Yerevan?s Freedom Square is "not expedient" because they disrupt "the city's normal life".

Armenia's legal vacuum on the regulation of public demonstrations provides the context for such rulings. The Armenian constitution upholds citizens? rights to public assembly, but there is no national law to regulate this constitutional provision, but only a presidential edict of May 6, 1997 (on state management of the city of Yerevan), which states that "under the procedure defined by law" the Mayor "decides the issues connected with gatherings, meetings, demonstrations, marches, and other mass events in the Yerevan area." In Yerevan the mayor?s office has promulgated no relevant by-law, but arbitrarily rules whether or not to authorize any given public demonstration, without reference to a "procedure defined by law".

The 12 April demonstration, having started at 4 p.m. at Freedom Square with an estimated 10,000 participants, moved in the direction of the parliament and president's office at Baghramyan Avenue, where it was stopped by hundreds of policemen in heavy anti-riot gear. The demonstration remained peaceful. Shortly after midnight the police dissolved the demonstration, with still between 2,000 and 3,000 people present, using excessive force. They attacked the demonstrators from two sides, using water cannons, stun grenades and batons. A number of demonstrators, who were trying to flee in panic, were badly beaten, and had to be taken to hospital. Yerevan city health officials were quoted as saying that 16 demonstrators were hospitalized. Many of the injured demonstrators refused to be brought to a hospital out of fear of the authorities. Also some police officers had to be medically treated.

The IHF notes that international human rights law, such as the European Convention on Human Rights to which Armenia is a state party, obliges states positively to uphold the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and expression. Restrictions may be no more than necessary in a democratic society or if there is a genuine risk to national security or public safety.

Violations of the freedom of movement

On 5 April the police limited the access to Yerevan on all roads leading to the capital, in a move to prevent opposition supporters from attending the demonstration. Police officers at roadblocks strongly objected when journalists tried to photograph them.

On 9 April the public transport system between Yerevan and the rest of Armenia was brought to a virtual halt, partly by banning minibuses in the province from working, partly by blocking the entrance to Yerevan to buses, minibuses and taxis. Also personal cars and commercial trucks were stopped for identity checks by traffic and military police. The days before the 9 April demonstration the police had already stopped buses coming from the city of Artashat and nearby villages to bar people from attending the opposition rally. Again the police officers did not allow the photographing of the roadblocks.

On 12 April additionally the subway did not stop any longer at the "Baghramyan" station, which is close to the Parliament building and the President's residence, where the demonstration was planned to take place.

Violations of the freedom of media

On 5 April, a group of about two dozen men tried to disrupt the demonstration by throwing eggs at opposition speakers and firecrackers into the crowd. After some journalists and cameramen started to photograph and film their disruptive actions, the thugs attacked them, smashing or confiscating their cameras. Several journalists were beaten, and one female correspondent of the paper "Aravot" was knocked down. Scores of police were present at the rally but did not try to stop the violence and remained inactive. The opposition and some journalists believe that the assailants are bodyguards of some business tycoons close to President Kocharyan. A privately owned TV channel, Kentron, has repeatedly broadcast a brief footage of the attack, exposing some of the attackers. The paper "Aravot" printed the picture of the man who knocked down their correspondent, identifying him as a distant relative of a senior police official.

On 8 April, the OSCE Mission in Yerevan, headed by Ambassador Vladimir Pryakhin, condemned the violence and asked for criminal proceedings to be launched against the instigators. The chief of the Yerevan police, Nerses Nazaryan, promised that the police was trying to establish the identity of the attackers and will formally launch criminal proceedings into the incident.

When the 12 April demonstration was violently dissolved shortly after midnight, Levon Grigoryan, cameraman for the Russian TV channels ORT, was badly beaten and his camera broken by plainclothes officers. Likewise, the journalists of the leading pro-opposition Haykakan Zhamanak newspaper, Hayk Gevorgyan and Avetis Babajanian, had to be treated in hospital after having been badly beaten. The photo-camera of Gevorgyan was broken by the police. During the demonstration at the Freedom Square cellular communication was ceased, so that journalists were deprived of the chance to obtain and provide information.

Since 6 April, after it started to report on the demonstrations of the opposition in Armenia, the Russian TV station NTV cannot be received any longer by subscribers of Armenian cable television. The company claims that this is due to a transmitter that is out of order. Likewise, copies of those editions of the Russian daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta, which cover the demonstrations, were stopped at the border. On 11 April the private TV channel Kentron was stopped from broadcasting for some hours.

On 13 April the press conference of the leader of the Artarutyun alliance, Stepan Demirchyan, was broken up by the police.

Violations of the rule of law ? The use of administrative arrest as a tool of political repression

Following each of the demonstrations many of the opposition activists and supporters were detained, in many cases on the basis of the infamous Soviet-era Code of Administrative Offenses. After demonstrations during and after the disputed Presidential Elections in 2003, this form of administrative detention was strongly criticized by the Council of Europe and the OSCE when it was used against hundreds of opposition supporters, who subsequently were sentenced in closed trials without access to lawyers for allegedly committing "hooligan acts".

For example after the 9 April demonstration about 60 people were detained, especially those carrying banners during the rally. On 10 April plainclothes officers arrested the 16-year old daughter of one of the active participants of the protests, in order to force the latter to come to the police station, and only released her late at night. On 12 April local policemen detained twelve residents of the village of Jrashat, close to Yerevan, because they wanted to walk to Yerevan in order to attend the demonstration.

On 12 April, the two opposition parties, the Artarutyun alliance and the National Unity party, claimed in a press conference that over the last two weeks at least 254 of their activists and supporters across the country have been detained or forcibly taken to police for questioning. Dozens of people are believed to have been sentenced to up to 15 days in prison for attending unsanctioned anti-Kocharyan rallies.

Persecution of dissenters

On 31 March, the Armenian authorities warned that opposition party leaders could face arrest in the course of an investigation launched into their alleged plans to "seize state power by violence and change the constitutional order of the Republic of Armenia." The next day, the Prosecutor General's Office confirmed that a criminal case will be pursued against Artarutyun alliance leaders in connection with the "mainly unsanctioned" rallies over the last month, for having violated articles 301 and 318/2 of the Criminal Code by "publicly insulting representatives of the government" and threatening to "change the constitutional order of the Republic of Armenia". He also sent a letter to parliament speaker, Artur Baghdasaryan, asking him to take "adequate measures" against opposition lawmakers who "commit criminal acts instead of engaging in legislative work", by which it is understood that he referred to the lifting of their parliamentary immunity.

On 4 April, Suren Surenyants, a senior Artarutyun member, board member of the Republic Party and editor-in-chief of the party's newspaper, was arrested on charges of having violated exactly the above mentioned articles 301 and 318/2. The prosecutor's office threatened to bring similar charges against other opposition leaders if they continue their "unconstitutional" campaign against President Kocharyan. On 9 April, Artak Gabrielyan was arrested for disseminating leaflets issued by the National Unity party, announcing the next days demonstration, and on 11 April another board member of the Republic Party, Aramazd Zagaryan, was arrested when he was about to enter the Freedom Square, where a demonstration wa taking place. Both were accused of the same charges as Surenyants. All three men are regarded as political prisoners by Armenian human rights groups.

On 4 April, Aramayis Barseghian, a leading member of the Artarutyun alliance member People's Party of Armenia (HZhK), was beaten up by unknown assailants outside his house in Artashat.

Leaders of the Artarutyun (Justice) alliance received either orders or "invitations" to appear on 8 April before state prosecutors for questioning in connection with their campaign for regime change. But they refused to obey them. One prominent opposition member, MP and Artarutyun Alliance secretary Viktor Dallaqyan, was invited to the police station as the victim of an attack two weeks ago, but then was forcibly taken to the Prosecutor-General's office as a witness in the ongoing criminal investigation into Artarutyun's activities. He was set free at the end of the day. Two other MPs of the Artarutyun alliance, Vardan Mkrtchyan and Tatul Manaseryan, were briefly detained on 12 April, when they campaigned in the Yerevan?s northern and southern districts, urging residents to attend the opposition rally later that day. Both were released shortly afterwards.

During the 9 April rally, two men were arrested carrying pistols. Later on, the Office of the Prosecutor announced that the two men had allegedly confessed that Artarutyun alliance MP, Smbat Ayvazyan, "together with his supporters", had hired them to shoot in different directions during the meeting, in order to cause panic among the protestors.

After the 12 April demonstration had been violently dissolved, police raided the headquarters of the Republic Party and the People's Party, both members of the Artarutyun alliance, as well as of the National Unity Party (AMK), smashing office equipment and arresting dozens of activists. So far known are the arrests of Aleskan Karapetian (AMK deputy chair), Rouzan Khachatryan (press secretary of the People?s Party), MPs Vartan Mkkrtchian, Arshak Sadoyan and Shavarsh Kocharyan (Artarutyun alliance).

Already on 30 March, a prominent human rights monitor and advocate, Mikael Danielyan, the chairman of the Armenian Helsinki Association, had been attacked and severely beaten by four assailants.

For further information:

International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, Aaron Rhodes, Executive Director, +43-1-408 88 22, +43-676-635 66 12

Human rights protection prompt response group in Armenia, comprising so far seven human rights groups, inter alia
Civil Society Institute, Artak Kirakosyan, Chair, +374-1-223 440, mobile: 374-9-403 609

Armenian Helsinki Committee, Avetik Ishkhanyan, Chair, +374-1-561 472

Vienna, 13 April 2004