Vienna, 13 April 2004. Armenian authorities have broadly violated basic
international civil and political human rights norms in their efforts to thwart
protests against the government and the president, according to reports by
Armenian human rights organizations and media. These oppressive policies are at
variance with Armenia’s obligations as a participating State of the Organization
for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and as a member of the Council of
Europe, and call into question the government’s commitment to the political
values of these bodies. On the practical level, they sow seeds of further and
more demonstrative political confrontations, and regional instability.



The International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) calls upon the
Armenian presidential administration to reassess its approach to political
dissent, and to support a full, independent investigation of recent state
actions, in cooperation with experts from the OSCE and Council of Europe, and
independent civil society monitors. The IHF offers its own assistance and
cooperation in this process.

We summarize below the evidence of violations of freedom of assembly, of freedom
of movement, of the freedom of the media, and of the persecution of political
dissenters that have occurred.

• Violations of the freedom of assembly

At the end of March the two main opposition parties, the Artarutyun (Justice)
alliance and the National Unity Party (AMK), announced that they would stage a
series of demonstrations in April. Their demand is that either President Robert
Kocharyan resigns, or at least agrees to a confidence referendum, an idea that
was floated by the Constitutional Court in the wake of last year's disputed
presidential election, but since then rejected by the President and the
parliamentary majority.



The first demonstration was conducted on 5 April, followed by a series of daily
demonstrations starting with 9 April.



All the meetings and demonstrations of the opposition were arbitrarily declared
“unauthorized” by the mayor’s office in Yerevan. For example regarding the
planned demonstration on 9 April they informed the two organizers, the
Artarutyun Alliance and the National Unity Party, that the holding of protest
meetings at Yerevan´s Freedom Square is “not expedient” because they disrupt
“the city’s normal life”.



Armenia’s legal vacuum on the regulation of public demonstrations provides the
context for such rulings. The Armenian constitution upholds citizens’ rights to
public assembly, but there is no national law to regulate this constitutional
provision, but only a presidential edict of May 6, 1997 (on state management of
the city of Yerevan), which states that “under the procedure defined by law” the
Mayor “decides the issues connected with gatherings, meetings, demonstrations,
marches, and other mass events in the Yerevan area.” In Yerevan the mayor’s
office has promulgated no relevant by-law, but arbitrarily rules whether or not
to authorize any given public demonstration, without reference to a “procedure
defined by law”.



The 12 April demonstration, having started at 4 p.m. at Freedom Square with an
estimated 10,000 participants, moved in the direction of the parliament and
president’s office at Baghramyan Avenue, where it was stopped by hundreds of
policemen in heavy anti-riot gear. The demonstration remained peaceful. Shortly
after midnight the police dissolved the demonstration, with still between 2,000
and 3,000 people present, using excessive force. They attacked the demonstrators
from two sides, using water cannons, stun grenades and batons. A number of
demonstrators, who were trying to flee in panic, were badly beaten, and had to
be taken to hospital. Yerevan city health officials were quoted as saying that
16 demonstrators were hospitalized. Many of the injured demonstrators refused to
be brought to a hospital out of fear of the authorities. Also some police
officers had to be medically treated.



The IHF notes that international human rights law, such as the European
Convention on Human Rights to which Armenia is a state party, obliges states
positively to uphold the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and expression.
Restrictions may be no more than necessary in a democratic society or if there
is a genuine risk to national security or public safety.

• Violations of the freedom of movement

On 5 April the police limited the access to Yerevan on all roads leading to
the capital, in a move to prevent opposition supporters from attending the
demonstration. Police officers at roadblocks strongly objected when journalists
tried to photograph them.



On 9 April the public transport system between Yerevan and the rest of Armenia
was brought to a virtual halt, partly by banning minibuses in the province from
working, partly by blocking the entrance to Yerevan to buses, minibuses and
taxis. Also personal cars and commercial trucks were stopped for identity checks
by traffic and military police. The days before the 9 April demonstration the
police had already stopped buses coming from the city of Artashat and nearby
villages to bar people from attending the opposition rally. Again the police
officers did not allow the photographing of the roadblocks



On 12 April additionally the subway did not stop any longer at the “Baghramyan”
station, which is close to the Parliament building and the President’s
residence, where the demonstration was planned to take place.

• Violations of the freedom of media

On 5 April, a group of about two dozen men tried to disrupt the demonstration
by throwing eggs at opposition speakers and firecrackers into the crowd. After
some journalists and cameramen started to photograph and film their disruptive
actions, the thugs attacked them, smashing or confiscating their cameras.
Several journalists were beaten, and one female correspondent of the paper
‘Aravot’ was knocked down. Scores of police were present at the rally but did
not try to stop the violence and remained inactive. The opposition and some
journalists believe that the assailants are bodyguards of some business tycoons
close to President Kocharyan. A privately owned TV channel, Kentron, has
repeatedly broadcast a brief footage of the attack, exposing some of the
attackers. The paper ‘Aravot’ printed the picture of the man who knocked down
their correspondent, identifying him as a distant relative of a senior police
official.



On 8 April, the OSCE Mission in Yerevan, headed by Ambassador Vladimir Pryakhin,
condemned the violence and asked for criminal proceedings to be launched against
the instigators. The chief of the Yerevan police, Nerses Nazaryan, promised that
the police was trying to establish the identity of the attackers and will
formally launch criminal proceedings into the incident.



When the 12 April demonstration was violently dissolved shortly after midnight,
Levon Grigoryan, cameraman for the Russian TV channels ORT, was badly beaten and
his camera broken by plainclothes officers. Likewise, the journalists of the
leading pro-opposition Haykakan Zhamanak newspaper, Hayk Gevorgyan and Avetis
Babajanian, had to be treated in hospital after having been badly beaten. The
photo-camera of Gevorgyan was broken by the police. During the demonstration at
the Freedom Square cellular communication was ceased, so that journalists were
deprived of the chance to obtain and provide information.



Since 6 April, after it started to report on the demonstrations of the
opposition in Armenia, the Russian TV station NTV cannot be received any longer
by subscribers of Armenian cable television. The company claims that this is due
to a transmitter that is out of order. Likewise, copies of those editions of the
Russian daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta, which cover the demonstrations, were stopped
at the border. On 11 April the private TV channel Kentron was stopped from
broadcasting for some hours.



On 13 April the press conference of the leader of the Artarutyun alliance,
Stepan Demirchyan, was broken up by the police.

•  Violations of the rule of law – The use of administrative arrest as
  a tool of political repression

Following each of the demonstrations many of the opposition activists and
supporters were detained, in many cases on the basis of the infamous Soviet-era
Code of Administrative Offenses. After demonstrations during and after the
disputed Presidential Elections in 2003, this form of administrative detention
was strongly criticized by the Council of Europe and the OSCE when it was used
against hundreds of opposition supporters, who subsequently were sentenced in
closed trials without access to lawyers for allegedly committing “hooligan
acts”.



For example after the 9 April demonstration about 60 people were detained,
especially those carrying banners during the rally. On 10 April plainclothes
officers arrested the 16-year old daughter of one of the active participants of
the protests, in order to force the latter to come to the police station, and
only released her late at night. On 12 April local policemen detained twelve
residents of the village of Jrashat, close to Yerevan, because they wanted to
walk to Yerevan in order to attend the demonstration.



On 12 April, the two opposition parties, the Artarutyun alliance and the
National Unity party, claimed in a press conference that over the last two weeks
at least 254 of their activists and supporters across the country have been
detained or forcibly taken to police for questioning. Dozens of people are
believed to have been sentenced to up to 15 days in prison for attending
unsanctioned anti-Kocharyan rallies.

• Persecution of dissenters

On 31 March, the Armenian authorities warned that opposition party leaders
could face arrest in the course of an investigation launched into their alleged
plans to “seize state power by violence and change the constitutional order of
the Republic of Armenia.” The next day, the Prosecutor General’s Office
confirmed that a criminal case will be pursued against Artarutyun alliance
leaders in connection with the “mainly unsanctioned” rallies over the last
month, for having violated articles 301 and 318/2 of the Criminal Code by
“publicly insulting representatives of the government” and threatening to
“change the constitutional order of the Republic of Armenia”. He also sent a
letter to parliament speaker, Artur Baghdasaryan, asking him to take “adequate
measures” against opposition lawmakers who “commit criminal acts instead of
engaging in legislative work”, by which it is understood that he referred to the
lifting of their parliamentary immunity.



On 4 April, Suren Surenyants, a senior Artarutyun member, board member of the
Republic Party and editor-in-chief of the party’s newspaper, was arrested on
charges of having violated exactly the above mentioned articles 301 and 318/2.
The prosecutor’s office threatened to bring similar charges against other
opposition leaders if they continue their “unconstitutional” campaign against
President Kocharyan. On 9 April, Artak Gabrielyan was arrested for disseminating
leaflets issued by the National Unity party, announcing the next days
demonstration, and on 11 April another board member of the Republic Party,
Aramazd Zagaryan, was arrested when he was about to enter the Freedom Square,
where a demonstration wa taking place. Both were accused of the same charges as
Surenyants. All three men are regarded as political prisoners by Armenian human
rights groups.



On 4 April, Aramayis Barseghian, a leading member of the Artarutyun alliance
member People’s Party of Armenia (HZhK), was beaten up by unknown assailants
outside his house in Artashat.



Leaders of the Artarutyun (Justice) alliance received either orders or
“invitations” to appear on 8 April before state prosecutors for questioning in
connection with their campaign for regime change. But they refused to obey them.
One prominent opposition member, MP and Artarutyun Alliance secretary Viktor
Dallaqyan, was invited to the police station as the victim of an attack two
weeks ago, but then was forcibly taken to the Prosecutor-General’s office as a
witness in the ongoing criminal investigation into Artarutyun’s activities. He
was set free at the end of the day. Two other MPs of the Artarutyun alliance,
Vardan Mkrtchyan and Tatul Manaseryan, were briefly detained on 12 April, when
they campaigned in the Yerevan’s northern and southern districts, urging
residents to attend the opposition rally later that day. Both were released
shortly afterwards.



During the 9 April rally, two men were arrested carrying pistols. Later on, the
Office of the Prosecutor announced that the two men had allegedly confessed that
Artarutyun alliance MP, Smbat Ayvazyan, “together with his supporters”, had
hired them to shoot in different directions during the meeting, in order to
cause panic among the protestors.



After the 12 April demonstration had been violently dissolved, police raided the
headquarters of the Republic Party and the People’s Party, both members of the
Artarutyun alliance, as well as of the National Unity Party (AMK), smashing
office equipment and arresting dozens of activists. So far known are the arrests
of Aleskan Karapetian (AMK deputy chair), Rouzan Khachatryan (press secretary of
the People’s Party), MPs Vartan Mkkrtchian, Arshak Sadoyan and Shavarsh
Kocharyan (Artarutyun alliance).



Already on 30 March, a prominent human rights monitor and advocate, Mikael
Danielyan, the chairman of the Armenian Helsinki Association, had been attacked
and severely beaten by four assailants.





For further information:



International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, Aaron Rhodes, Executive
Director, +43-1-408 88 22, +43-676-635 66 12

Human rights protection prompt response group” in Armenia, comprising so far
seven human rights groups, inter alia

Civil Society Institute, Artak Kirakosyan, President, +374-1-223 440, mobile:
374-9-403 609

Armenian Helsinki Committee, Avetik Ishkhanyan, Chair, +374-1-561 472



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1) For more details see: Human Rights Watch, “An Imitation of Law: The Use of
Administrative Detention in the 2003 Armenian Presidential Election”, Human
Rights Watch Briefing Paper, May 23, 2003, www.hrw.org

2) For more details see: International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights,
“Chairman of Armenian Helsinki Association Mikael Danielyan Assaulted in
Yerevan”, 30 March 2004, and “IHF/NHC Open Letter Regarding Brutal Physical
Attack on Human Rights Defender Mikael Danielyan”, 7 April 2004;
www.ihf-hr.org