Armenian Political Prisoners Released In Amnesty
Armenian authorities have begun releasing dozens of political prisoners
more than 15 months after suppressing massive opposition demonstrations
against the official results of a disputed presidential election. They
have ensured, however, that not all jailed supporters of the top
opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosian are set free under a general
amnesty declared on June 19. President Serzh Sarksyan's intention to
keep more than a dozen of them behind bars is a measure of his
self-confidence, resulting from opposition setbacks and Western support
for his foreign policy.
Officially, the amnesty has little
connection with the February 2008 presidential election and the ensuing
deadly violence in Yerevan. It will affect approximately 2,000
individuals, or nearly half Armenia's prison population, serving
sentences for various crimes. According to the Justice Minister Gevorg
Danielian, around 500 convicts will walk free in the coming weeks,
while the others will have their sentences shortened (Aravot, June 20).
Few
doubt that the measure is primarily a face-saving way of freeing more
than 50 opposition members and supporters arrested in the wake of the
troubled vote. The vast majority of them were jailed in connection with
the March 1, 2008 clashes in Yerevan between the security forces and
opposition protesters that left ten people dead and more than 200
others injured. Many received prison sentences solely on the basis of
police testimony. The authorities claim that the "mass riots" were part
of an attempted coup d'etat by Ter-Petrosian. However, neither the
opposition leader, who had served as Armenia's first president from
1991-1998, nor any of his associates have been prosecuted on
corresponding charges. The official theory of the unrest looked even
more far-fetched after the authorities dropped the controversial coup
charges against seven senior opposition figures in late March 2009.
Under
the terms of an amnesty bill drafted by Sarksyan and approved by
parliament on June 19, only 35 jailed oppositionists are expected to be
released. The authorities freed 15 of them on June 22. Those included
two opposition members of parliament and the former foreign minister
Aleksandr Arzumanian, who managed Ter-Petrosian's presidential election
campaign (www.a1plus.am, June 22). The three men walked free from
courtrooms immediately after being sentenced, in separate trials, to
five years in prison for allegedly organizing the post-election
clashes. Four other opposition figures gained their freedom on June 23.
One of them, Gagik Jahangirian, was sacked as Armenia's deputy
prosecutor-general and arrested the day after proclaiming Ter-Petrosian
the rightful election winner at a February 22, 2008 rally in Yerevan.
Among
approximately 15 oppositionists likely to stay in jail is Sasun
Mikaelian, another opposition lawmaker charged with organizing riots as
well as illegal arms possession. That he will not be freed was made
clear by Justice Minister Danielian even before Mikaelian received an
eight-year prison sentence on June 22 (www.tert.am, June 22). A fourth
opposition parliamentarian, Khachatur Sukiasian, went into hiding and
apparently fled the country to avoid arrest following the March 2008
violence. The tricky language of the amnesty bill means that Sukiasian
as well as Nikol Pashinian, the fugitive editor of the pro-opposition
daily Haykakan Zhamanak, may well choose to stay in hiding in the
months and perhaps years to come.
The bill was overwhelmingly
passed by the government-controlled National Assembly just three days
before the start of the summer session of the Council of Europe
Parliamentary Assembly (PACE). The PACE has repeatedly demanded the
immediate release of all oppositionists arrested on "seemingly
artificial or politically motivated charges," threatening to impose
sanctions against Armenia. It has backed down on those threats just as
frequently, much to the dismay of the Armenian opposition. The
Strasbourg-based body took no punitive action against Yerevan when it
again discussed the political situation in the South Caucasus state on
June 24. Meeting in Strasbourg on June 22, the PACE's monitoring
committee reportedly welcomed the partial opposition amnesty initiated
by Sarksyan (RFE/RL's Armenian service, June 22).
The PACE's
stance reflects the West's largely positive attitude toward Armenia's
current leadership and the apparent skepticism about the
Ter-Petrosian-led opposition that in turn stem from its geopolitical
agenda in the region. Ever since taking office in April 2008 Sarksyan
has scored significant points in Western capitals with his dramatic
rapprochement with Turkey and readiness to make concessions to
Azerbaijan over Karabakh. That has enabled him to minimize
international criticism and even receive praise from U.S. and European
officials while holding political prisoners (their number exceeded 100
at one point) and restricting civil liberties.
The only tangible
loss suffered by the Sarksyan administration internationally was a
recent decision by the United States to cut about $70 million in
additional economic assistance to Armenia contingent on democratic
governance (Statement by the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation,
June 10). The U.S. State Department has also been highly critical of
the Armenian authorities' human rights record and their handling of the
May 31 municipal elections in Yerevan. But both the current and former
U.S. administrations have been quite cautious in pressing the Yerevan
government to address their concerns. Washington will likely tread even
more carefully, now that it nears achieving two key U.S. goals in the
region: a Karabakh settlement and the normalization of Turkish-Armenian
relations.
The European Union, for its part, has been largely
silent on political developments in Armenia since the spring of 2008,
despite its claims of deepening its engagement in the South Caucasus.
At least in public, E.U. leaders have only heaped praise on Sarksyan
for his overtures toward Ankara and avoided any open criticism of his
domestic policies. They did not react to the Yerevan polls at all. The
E.U. has thus far done very little to promote democracy and human
rights in Armenia, and there are no indications that this will change
even after the country's inclusion in the E.U.'s ambitious Eastern
Partnership program.
The article was published in Eurasia Daily Monitor.