In one of diplomatic cables about Armenia revealed by WikiLeaks (www.wikileaks.ch/cable/2008/10/08YEREVAN862.html#) there was said that Armen Harutyunyan, the former Human Rights Defender of the Republic of Armenia, used the “prisoner of conscience” definition, which he consistently refused doing during his being in office, during a conversation with US Ambassador to the Republic of Armenia Marie Yovanovitch after March 1 events.
Armen Harutyunyan, the former Human Rights Defender of theRepublicofArmeniaand the current Regional Representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Central Asia is inYerevanthese days. Aravot.am inquired from the former Ombudsman whether such a thing had happened and whether he had perceived the arrestees prisoners of conscience during his being in office too. Armen Harutyunyan said in this regard, “There are issues, about which the best words one can say are those, which haven’t been said. If one refers to the issue from the legal perspective, one must put forward legal evidence, but all of us understand what was going on, what is the issue. In any case, I am glad that a legal solution was found and basically no one is imprisoned in regard to the March 1 events today. I don’t want to give a political assessment, because I was not a politician either then or now, but it was very important from the moral perspective, as it could ease the situation then and it did”, said the former Ombudsman, giving importance to how society perceives and assesses the righteousness of every step taken. “The social justice is the most important thing – people can bear economic, financial or any other kind of troubles and be mobilized, if they know that there is social and generally in a broader sense justice in the country. People are disappointed or bear harder not financial troubles, but injustice. I am convinced that the overwhelming majority of the society perceived that step (the release of the political prisoners – edit.) just. I don’t care what grounds they found for doing so. It was good that the issue was finally solved. Only after that the dialogue between the establishment and the opposition, which was new culture on the post-Soviet territory, was possible. It doesn’t matter whether that dialogue gave a result or not – the important thing is that the establishment and the opposition sat around a table and were able to speak. They didn’t reach an agreement – culture was formed. Next time they may sit down and perhaps next time there will be a success. The opposition and the establishment should help each other, in order to find each other’s mistakes and show them, because neither the opposition, nor the establishment is the bearer of absolute truth. The dialogue was right and important.”
N. MAMIKONYAN
P.S. Read the exclusive interview with Armen Harutyunyan, the former Human Rights Defender of theRepublicofArmenia, in tomorrow’s “Aravot”.
