Police in Yerevan and the provinces arrested Demirchian activists—including his local campaign managers and registered proxies—in pre-dawn raids on their homes. In one incident yesterday, Yerevan police detained a 20-year-old woman to compel her father, a Demirchian campaign headquarters official, to turn himself in.
“These arrests appear to be a clumsy attempt to disable the opposition in the week before the runoff election,” said Elizabeth Andersen, executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Europe and Central Asia division.
Pro-government media initially reported a first round victory for Kocharian in the February 19 poll, with more than 50 percent of the vote. The Central Electoral Commission withheld preliminary results hours beyond the legal deadline on February 20, citing snow for the delay.
On February 20, tens of thousands of Demirchian supporters demonstrated in Yerevan, voicing their fears that Kocharian may falsify victory, eliminating the need for a run-off. The results eventually published gave just under 50 percent for Kocharian. Since February 20, three largely peaceful Demirchian rallies have taken place in Yerevan. The municipal government withheld authorization from the first two.
Justice Ministry spokesman Ara Saghatelian revealed today that district courts had imposed administrative penalties against 150 people. Eighty-six were given prison sentences of up to fifteen days; others were fined. Most were charged under Article 180 of the Code of Administrative Violations.
Article 180 penalizes organizing and leading unauthorized marches and demonstrations, but not participation in such events. Yet the arrests have included some who were not rally organizers. When Human Rights Watch yesterday asked the president of Yerevan’s Center and Nork-Marash district court about this discrepancy, he declined to comment.
Other offenses cited by the ministry included violations of public order, acts of hooliganism, and disobeying police. Armenian authorities would not identify what specific acts justified the charges, and in a statement to the press instead referred to some of the detainees’ alleged prior criminal records. Monitors and lawyers could not clarify the grounds for the charges because they were not admitted to the court hearings.
“Detainees should be released immediately,” said Andersen. “They’ve had no access to due process. What is worse, new reports suggest police are overstepping all legal boundaries in their hunt for opposition activists.”
Yerevan’s Center and Nork-Marash district court has handed down the majority of the administrative sentences to date, most of them on February 24. On that day police “red berets” surrounded the court building. Lawyers and relatives of the accused were not admitted. The president of the court yesterday confirmed to Human Rights Watch that none of the accused had legal representation. Straining credibility, he claimed that all eighty-six had declined to be represented.
In many cases, colleagues, lawyers, and relatives have been refused accurate information on detainees’ whereabouts:
- Tigran Ter-Yesaian, a lawyer trying to defend detainees in Yerevan in recent days, told Ayb-Fe news agency: “When we go to police departments, we are told the detainee is in court. When we go to the court, they say he or she is in one of the police departments. Before the confusion is resolved, a court verdict for fifteen days of administrative detention has already been issued.”
- The father of a bus driver from the town of Vedi, arrested on February 22, after driving Demirchian supporters to Yerevan appealed to the Armenian Helsinki Committee on February 24 to help locate his son, whom the police had taken away to an undisclosed location. Many arrested activists throughout the country are reportedly unaccounted for.
There are increasing reports of arbitrary and abusive conduct in the implementation of arrests:
- In the morning of February 26, police went to the Yerevan apartment of Abraham Kirakosian, a Demirchian campaign headquarters activist. Failing to find him there, they detained his 20-year-old daughter. On hearing of this, Kirakosian turned himself in to police within three hours, whereupon his daughter was released.
- On February 24, Noyan Tapan news agency reported that police in the Shengavit district of Yerevan seized a Ford automobile equipped with loudspeakers, belonging to the Demirchian campaign. The driver and passengers were all reportedly sentenced to fifteen days of administrative detention.
