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October 13, 2005 National Citizens’ Initiative Holds Public Hearings on Yerevan—The National Citizens’ Initiative (NCI) today continued its series of public hearings with a town-hall meeting on “Violations in Property Alienation.” By means of the event, NCI brought a new stimulus to the civic movement against the human rights infringements taking place during implementation of the new construction plan for Yerevan. On August 24, at the time of the first hearings devoted to this issue, NCI had underscored the need to prepare a special report. NCI program coordinator Edgar Hakobian welcomed the audience with opening remarks. This was followed by a video clip on the recent and ongoing violations against the residents of the “alienation belt” in the capital’s Kentron community. “The legal abuse against the citizens of Armenia is continuing and no end seems in sight. For many of our fellow dwellers life has turned into a nightmare; numerous families are on the streets for quite some time now. In addition, if the state is refusing to restore the infringed rights of its own citizens, then civil society has no right to remain silent. And in various ways our Initiative is trying to assume its share in the prevention of those contraventions,” Hakobian said, who also gave eyewitness testimony on several such breaches.
Armenian Center for National and International Studies (ACNIS) director of research Stiopa Safarian made public NCI’s special report entitled “The Victims of State Necessities,” in which a group of analysts has thoroughly examined the legitimacy and constitutionality of this process. “The addressees of the review are not the Armenian public alone but also those officials who have not yet lost the capacity to listen and make a real assessment. Just as Armenian citizens have exhausted all possible avenues for defending their rights, it seems the body politic likewise has lost the capability to stop those unlawful acts. With this report, we seek to give new impetus to the process by means of inviting to this question the attention of not only local but also international human rights organizations,” Safarian concluded. Illegalities and arbitrariness are still so widespread in Armenia that this autumn the country’s ombudswoman Larisa Alaverdian had come up with a special report in this regard. “The human rights defender had been criticized for her 2004 annual report, where the facts pertaining to the sad state of human rights were either under-expressed or entirely missing. That gap has been filled by the special report,” Alaverdian said. She also expressed a conviction that even after the revelation of relevant evidences, unlawful acts continue unabated.
In his turn, Armenian Bar Association member Arthur Grigorian brought forth numerous examples of the breach of citizens’ rights to judicial protection. “Indirect persecution also has started against human rights advocates and legal defenders. A vivid illustration of this is the arrest, based on fabricated accusations, and night trial of Vahe Grigorian, director of the legal firm ‘Right,’” Arthur Grigorian noted. The participants in the hearing recalled that Vahe Grigorian is the lawyer for a number of families being evicted from Biuzand Street who by way of his professional practice is generating serious impediments for the “digestion” of these illegalities. The assembled NCI activists and other public representatives made an appeal to the governing authorities to put an end to such unlawful and undemocratic deeds. Despite the invitations that were sent to a range of state bodies, there were very few government officials who took part in the session. Chairman Karen Davtian of the Bureau for the Implementation of Yerevan’s Construction Investment Plans attempted to substantiate the legitimacy of property alienation. According to him, the number of disgruntled citizens is small because approximately 1200 residents of that area already have signed pertinent contracts and received compensations. In the words of Davtian, the complaints by many are baseless since those people do not possess any documents that confirm their right to proprietorship. However, the scores of citizens who participated in the public roundtable with their private testimonies maintained the contrary and presented their own counter evidence as victims of the state’s “eminently false domain and needs.” Sedrak Barseghian in particular pointed out that the company, which received the permission to carry out construction in that zone has an enormous debt to the state. Biuzand Street residents Vachagan Hakobian, Levon Ghasabian, Gohar Gharibian, and Iskuhi Bilian, on the other hand, testified that the state authorities were evicting the inhabitants from their homes without compensating them.
The remainder of the session was devoted to exchanges of views and policy recommendations among the public figures and policy specialists in attendance. Noteworthy were interventions by MP Vardan Mkrtchian; Samvel Davtian from the Bureau for the Implementation of Yerevan’s Construction Investment Plans; Arsen Lalayants of the Yerevan City Hall; Artak Bektashian from the Ministry of Nature Protection; NCI activists Vardan Siradeghian and Liana Grigorian; chairman Avetik Ishkhanian of the Armenian Helsinki Committee; Artak Kirakosian from the Civil Society Institute; chairman Hakob Sanasarian of the Greens’ Union; the Armenian ombudswoman’s chief advisor Zhora Khachatrian and specialist Silva Markosian; OSCE Yerevan Office representative Lilit Umroyan; a group of former residents of Biuzand, Lalayants, Aram, and Pushkin streets; and many others.
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