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July 12, 2007 NCI Broaches the Issue of Political Prisoners
NCI coordinator Hovsep Khurshudian welcomed the audience with opening remarks. “It is a pity that as a result of social apathy—as was the case during election fraud, lock-down of party headquarters, and infringements upon free speech—the shameful concept of political prisoner, from which no one is immune, is growing worse in Armenia,” he said. In her intervention, Heritage Party MP and Armenia’s first ombudswoman Larisa Alaverdian addressed the ongoing political persecution and the existence of political prisoners in the Republic. She mentioned that Heritage’s parliamentary group had recently signed and officially deposited a certificate of guarantee for the release from custody, pending any trial, of Alexander Arzoumanian, Zhirair Sefilian, Vardan Malkhasian, and other political prisoners, and had called for the uprooting of such disgraceful practice. “By means of these ‘criminal’ cases, which due to the absence of corpus delicti cannot have legal results, individual men in power are attempting to ‘teach a lesson’ to the body politic,” she maintained. Alaverdian also expressed a conviction that the political persecutions in Armenia are carried out with a clearly shaped political will.
In his turn, defense attorney Vahe Grigorian spoke about Article 301 of the Armenian Criminal Code and the practical application of similar regulations abroad. He pointed to the fact that since Zhirair Sefilian and his fellow believers are singled out because of their free expression of thought and political actions, they meet the status of a political prisoner fully. “Article 301 of the Armenian Criminal Code, which incidentally has quite a few similarities with the same number article of the Turkish criminal code, is somewhat unpredictable because of its selective application.” he stated. “This notorious article does not provide, in Armenia and in Turkey alike, a clear distinction between the freedom of thought and the call for forcible seizure of power.” The next speaker, filmmaker Tigran Khzmalian, reflected on the new reality in Armenia with respect to the challenge of political prisoners. In Khzmalian’s words, the events which immediately followed the murder of Hrant Dink came to prove that the societal level in Armenia is even lower than that in Turkey. “Having the objective of recreating a civil society, we must elucidate our activity format and approach toward combating legal arbitrariness,” he concluded. Khzmalian also emphasized the need for a new layout in Armenia-Europe relations.
The remainder of the session was dedicated to an exchange of views and recommendations among the public figures and policy specialists in attendance. Noteworthy were interventions by chairman Garnik Margarian of the Motherland and Honor Party; Grizelda Ghazarian from the Forum of Intellectuals of Armenia; Heritage MP Stepan Safarian; editor-in-chief Nikol Pashinian of the Haikakan Zhamanak daily; publicist Hrachia Matevosian; chairman Mikael Danielian of the Armenian Helsinki Association; Armen Aghayan of the “Defense of Liberated Territories” public initiative; Mariam Avagian of the Galina Staravoitova Armenian Historical and Cultural Foundation; deputy-chairman of the Liberal Progressive Party Edward Antinian; director Ruben Torosian of the “Supreme Council” NGO; and several others. According to the roundtable participants, the actions of the ruling clique—which is organizing a “criminal coup” and using Article 301 as a means for persecuting the society to that end—carry the specific objective of spreading fear, and this would have an adverse effect on the institution of democratic values in Armenia and the latter’s international standing. During the exchange of opinions and suggestions, the participants also proposed the formation of a social commission that would deal with political prisoners’ issues.
In his closing remarks, Hovsep Khurshudian asserted that “one solution is to take the body politic out of its state of apathy and implement its potential to the fullest so that the reprehensible modus operandi of political persecutions—which now grow like a snowball—can be eradicated without delay.”
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