On March 16, 2010, the representatives of the Armenian National Congress organized a rally to hand the letter to the representative from European Council office in Armenia. The rally started from the statue of Saryan, went along the central streets of Yerevan, reached the Armenian office of the EC and finished on the North Avenue.

The ANC coordinator Levon Zourabyan told us that they expected that their suggestions will be the subject of serious discussions.  The Congress offers to release all imprisoned people who share ANC ideas, to restart the activity of fact finding group, reopen the A1+ television channel and to reform the election and assembly legislation.

We should remind you that the commission headed by Samvel Nikoyan has presented a number of suggestions in his report, mainly referring to social-economic and legal reforms. The other speakers about the issues of Armenia had been interested in how the Armenian National Assembly was going to realize those reforms and demanded a certain schedule for the next sitting of the commission.  

The meeting of the monitoring commission will take place today.

The head of Armenian delegation has already had the chance to inform that the paper is ready and will be presented. According to the schedule first of all the monitoring of March 1 commission will be carried out by the commission of state and legal issues.

The reforms in the police system, improvement of the legislation on elections and development of the court system, particularly of criminal procedures review are stated as immediate tasks in the schedule.  The paper mentions the steps and actions that are needed to be realized in the course of 2-3 years.

The representatives of the Armenian National Congress are not yet familiar with the schedule worked out by the National Assembly, but already make serious reservations against it. ANC offers its own schedule, calling it 'the schedule to overcome the political crisis.'

'We have announced about this campaign yet on March 1. We have presented our alternative schedule, as we believe that the actions planned by the government are not enough to get over the crisis.'

Before the beginning of the rally it was made clear to the participants that the campaign does not presuppose setting great hopes on international organizations - being an opposition the Congress tries to use all the possibilities.

Lousine Manoukyan