2007 REVIEW: INSTANCES OF ABUSE CONTINUE
- Freedom of SpeechSeptember 1st broadcasting of Radio Liberty was suspended on Public Radio of Armenia as the Public Television and Radio Company refused to prolong the contract with the station. Before that in June the government had submitted a draft law on making amendments in the law on television and radio with the National Assembly, which prohibited the Public Television and Radio Company that re-broadcast the programs of Radio Liberty, financed by the US Congress. The draft law failed, but the Public Television and Radio Company refused to prolong the contract signed up to February.
Broadcasting of Radio Liberty on Public Radio was once suspended in 1994, then restored in 1998.
Liberty was available all over the territory of the republic on Public Radio. Liberty now broadcasts on Yerevan FM and regional FM stations. Liberty is the only station not controlled by government authorities.
***
Arman Babajanyan, 31, editor of Yerevan Zhamanak daily has been in prison for a year and a half. He was detained on June 26th 2006 and was sentenced to 3.5 years of imprisonment this year for avoiding military service by fake documents. Babajanyan has accepted his guilt.
Babajanyan paid 1 million drams as prescribed by the order and submitted the check to the Appeal Court; however, it was not taken into notice and the Appeal Court only mitigated the verdict of the court of first instance changing it from 4 to 3.5 years.
Yerevan Zhamanak daily takes a critical posture on authorities and many journalists and rights activists believe the true reason for Babajanyan’s imprisonment is the stand of the newspaper.
“When they arrested him we knew it was because of his activities. And now a number of circumstances clearly prove it,” says the chairman of the Helsinki Committee of Armenia Avetik Ishkhanyan.
***
Tax bodies and the municipality of Gyumri have launched persecutions against the GALA Television Company of Gyumri after the channel broadcasted on October 14th the speech delivered by Levon Ter-Petrosyan on September 21st. The municipality of Gyumri has appealed to the court to uninstall the GALA broadcasting antenna from the old TV tower of Gyumri; and the tax service has appealed to the court to make it pay 25,212,800 drams ($83,000). The trials proceed simultaneously.
Vahan Khachatryan, director of the TV Company says representatives of the National Security Service had a talk with him the next day after the broadcast encouraging him to avoid broadcasting such kind of materials otherwise it would be bad for the television company. A conversation of similar content took place between him and the chairman of the Commission for Television and Radio Grigor Amalyan on October 17th.
Khachatryan says he has told them he will not succumb to pressure. After that, the tax bodies launched regular check-ups in ChAP Limited, the founder of the GALA Television, and the municipality has demanded to remove the antenna.
Vahan Tumasyan, coordinator of the National Democratic Union office in Gyumri says GALA is the only television channel that gives air to all political forces.
Seven organizations in Gyumri have created a headquarters for freedom of speech and the protection of the GALA (www.asparez.am).
Tortures
The preliminary investigation into the criminal case on the death of Levon Gulyan, 30, in the police on May 12th has been underway in the prosecutor general’s office of the republic for more than nine months. Gulyan was taken to the police as a witness of a murder in the neighborhood of the Pandok restaurant he ran.
Two days earlier, May 10th and May 11th, Gulyan was taken to the Shengavit police department and, his relatives say, was beaten. The workers at his restaurant say they were also beaten by police.
According to the police version, Gulyan died in an attempt to escape the police through the window on the second floor. The forensic examination of the Ministry of Healthcare concluded Gulyan died of falling from a 7 meter height, while upon the conclusion of the experts from Germany and Denmark the number of bruises found on the body could appear before the fall.
The chairman of the Helsinki committee says beatings and tortures in the police are a constant matter, but society learns about them only when they end up in one’s death.
Political prisoners
Citizen of Lebanon and the coordinator of the non-governmental initiative Defense of Liberated Territories Zhirayr Sefilyan and Vardan Malkhasyan, member of the political council for the Fatherland and Honor Party were sentenced to 1.5 and 2 years of imprisonment respectively for making public calls on forceful change of the constitutional order.
They have been in prison since December 10th 2006. Vardan Aronyan has been sentenced for two years of conditional imprisonment on the same case.
***
Former minister of foreign affairs of Armenia Alexander Arzumanyan spent four months in prison charged with money laundering. He was arrested on May 6th and was kept in the isolator of the National Security Service.
The means of his detention was replaced on September 6th and he was released, despite the case has not been closed. He is charged in receiving illegally earned $150,000 from Sashik Aghazaryan, a citizen of Russia.
Arzumanyan has refused to give evidence grounding it with the necessity for the preliminary investigation to identify first whether the sum was earned illegally and whether he [Arzumanyan] could know it if that proves true.
The right activists connect his imprisonment with his oppositional stand.
Arzumanyan has been actively engaged in politics beginning last year, has created a movement of disobedience against the authorities of Armenia and now backs the former president of Armenia Levon Ter-Petrosyan.
HYE SANTA 2008: A FAMILY, A FOUNDATION, AND WAITING FOR SPRING
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On January 1 when many in the world celebrate the New Year, Sisian resident Vardush Ohanyan also celebrates her birthday. Tuesday will be her 101st.
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HYESANTA 2008: A BAD DECISION, AND A LIFETIME TO RECOVER OR REGRET
HYESANTA 2008: ISOLATED ON THE BORDER
SPORTS YEAR-ENDER: ARMENIAN ATHLETES PUT UP NO-NONSENSE STRUGGLE THROUGHOUT 2007
NANI’S LIFE: SISIAN’S OLDEST CELEBRATES NEW YEAR AND A SPECIAL BIRTHDAY ANNIVERSARY
Armine AvagyanWELCOME 2008: SHOPPING, COOKING AND COUNTING DRAMS
DEFENSE: MILITARY DOCTRINE DEFINES PERCEIVED THREATS
HYESANTA 2008: JUST A JOB AND SOME HOPE . . .
HISTORY CAPTURED: GENEALOGY SERVICE RECORDS DYNASTIES
HYESANTA 2008: HOPE HELD IN A HEART WITHOUT CRACKED WALLS
HYE SANTA 2008: A FAMILY, A FOUNDATION, AND WAITING FOR SPRING
- 1600 The meeting of secular and ecclesiastic leaders from Dizak and Varanda provinces of Artsakh starts in Khor Virab Monastery.
- 1863 Anton Jevahirian publishes the "Ser" periodical in Constantinople.
- 1891 Birth of Levon Kalantar, theatrical figure and film director, in Tbilisi (Georgia). In 1921 he founded the Shahoomyan Exploratory Theater in Tbilisi.
- 1928 Birth (in Damascus, Syria) of the French-Armenian writer Vaheh Kachan (Khachatryan).
- 1947 Death of the eminent scholar Stepan Lisitsian. He was born in 1865.
- 1966 Birth of writer, prominent member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, and statesman Aveteess Aharonyan in Igdeer-Mva (Surmalu region).
- 1975 National Artist and Illusionist, Harootyoon Hakobyan wins the First Prize at an International Competition in Germany.
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