A mid-term assessment given by the Civil Society Institute (CSI), the Norwegian Helsinki Committee (NHC), and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) urges the Republic of Armenia: “End politically motivated prosecutions of individuals deemed opposition, and take steps to strengthen the rule of law, including respecting minimum guarantees as laid out in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, equal protection of the law, and judicial independence.” www.aravot.am inquired during a conversation with human rights advocates whether one could see the government of the Republic of Armenia show political will to solve problems, along with the international organizations’ reminding the Republic of Armenia about the above-mentioned issues. Vardan Harutyunyan, the manager of the Rights and Freedom Center, said in this regard: “That foreign organizations talk about the issues of prisoners of conscience, people persecuted for political reasons is good and effective leverage that can be used against the government of the Republic of Armenia. However, I don’t see any manifestation of political will. The government of the Republic of Armenia has used and continues to use political persecutions to strengthen its position. A striking example of that is the case of the Armenian National Congress (ANC) youth, Tigran Arakelyan. Pressure from outside should be so strong that the government of the Republic of Armenia is not compelled to take measures.
Otherwise, a long time is needed for the government to realize the essence and importance of the issue.” In response to the counterarguments put forward by the government that the foreign organizations used the above-mentioned issues for internal political pressures, V. Harutyunyan said: “There are no limits for human rights protection, it is above the state interests, the government’s interests, and I don’t have any such fear. Let me remind with regard to those counterarguments that the Soviet Union would also say, ‘They interfere in our internal affairs’ etc. Thus, all dictatorships try to justify themselves like that. Human rights are not internal affairs. For example, if in Brazil, in Canada, in America, human rights are violated; it is also our, the Armenians’, business too.” Tigran Yegoryan, an attorney at law, recalled the post-election developments with regard to the raised question and expressed the following opinion: “If political will has been shown, we would have at least seen fair trials of electoral cases, whereas we see the Special Investigative Service (SIS) be engaged in petty confrontations with counselors, wishing to prove that it is the SIS, not an ordinary investigative body. In that case, political will is out of the question, when the most important investigative body doesn’t conduct an efficient investigation into the cases of electoral fraud.” T. Yegoryan gave the example of the cases of Narine Ismail, Artak Hambardzumyan, and Narek Babayan and went into detail: “Can political will be in question, when trying to make an impression, prosecutors and representatives of the police of different caliber talked about their readiness at different TV shows to conduct impartial investigation into more than 20 cases, but we witness now how the majority of those cases are declined one by one. What is the problem that the state doesn’t show enough political will and doesn’t properly examine all the cases of electoral fraud, moreover, different investigative bodies, but not the SIS, examine and decline the majority of them, whereas the law requires that the SIS conduct investigation. For example, before the ruling of the Constitutional Court, in the most heated period, different prosecuting bodies had been very active; their representatives would put forward numbers regarding the prepared material and the investigations launched all the tame. After the ruling of the Constitutional Court, no one has talked about them. Moreover, we still have complaints about the investigations that were not launched during the 2012 National Assembly election. Those investigations have not been carried through so far. They started to decline all those cases secretly. Political will is out of the question given all this.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
