Published since 07.2002
Published on April 11, 2008
WHAT WOMEN WANT: WIVES OF ARRESTED LOBBY FOR HUSBANDS
- The wives of opposition members kept in detention on coup d’etat charges continue to demand the release of their husbands, who, they claim, are being persecuted for their political views. Melissa Brown, the American wife of former Foreign Minister Alexander Arzumanyan, says that when last summer her husband was arrested on money laundering charges, she understood that illegal and groundless arrests would later be applied against others as well. “And it turned out to be so, we had four political prisoners last summer, now we have 135,” Brown says. MP Myasnik Malkhasyan’s wife Anna says she is not hopeless as she and her two sons walk in the street proudly. “But I don’t know what to tell Myasnik’s 80-year-old mother every morning when she asks where her son is,” Anna says. Opposition Heritage party member Zaruhi Postanjyan says that almost none of the arrested politicians have previous court convictions, some of them were also members of parliament -- people with positive track records, people who enjoyed trust and respect, she says. “If we have embarked on a democratic country’s path, then we must not have political persecutions,” Postanjyan says. “Our state is not a rule-of-law state, we have deviated from the goal of building a law-abiding state. Everything has been distorted.” Tsovinar Samsonyan, the wife of arrested Hovhannes Ghazaryan, says that they have friends whose families do not live in their apartments today, for fear of arrests. She does not mention their names for understandable reasons. “It is like in a popular Soviet movie ‘Beware of an Automobile’ when people are on the run but don’t know why. People are persecuted and people indeed do not know for what. They get visits at their homes, their homes are searched, neighbors are warned to let police know immediately when the home owners come. It is already a month that children of many have not attended school. These families do not live normal lives,” Tsovinar says. Edita Yeghoyan, the wife of the arrested former ruling Armenian all-National Movement party leader Ararat Zurabyan, says her husband’s indictment is ridiculous. “They came and searched, took the legally licensed gun, confiscated the kid’s computer, besides, they are monitoring the café that I own. They want to do damage in every way, to make us feel miserable, fearful, but I am not the one to be afraid,” Edita says. “My husband will never alter his views, he is not a person who can betray and switch to another camp. And it is such people that seem to suit them.” In its Armenia-related report published this week the International Crisis Group in particular calls on the Sargsyan administration to “release prisoners detained on political grounds, stop arrests and harassment of the opposition…” Kanrik Khachatryan, the wife of Arshak Banuchyan, the vice-director for foreign ties at Matenadaran, says that when they came to their apartment for a search they found nothing beside working computers. “When my husband asked whether he would be arrested, they answered laughing – ‘Do you think we also arrest scholars?’ In fact they had only a search warrant, but with lies they also took Arshak,” she says. Some of the oppositionists are in hiding. One of them is Aram Manukyan. His wife Aida Sardaryan says: “It was Aram who [formerly] declared Armenia a free, independent republic and now he is in a not free and not independent republic.” And Knarik Khachatryan emotionally tells of what she feels when she sees her husband in handcuffs. “With those hands Arshak had brought parchment to Armenia. Those hands were the first to ring the bells at Ghazanchetsots Monastery. He cannot be considered to be a criminal, all this is for his political views,” she says. It was only after the call from [Europe’s] Ago Group that wives were allowed to see their husbands twice a month, have phone conversations with them three times a month and forward food once a week. And all this is only for those kept in the National Security Service jail, and for those who are kept in other penitentiaries, the regime of visits from family is much worse, and wives may often stand in a queue for several hours and still not get the chance to see their husbands. MP Postanjyan thinks that methods of repression always end in defeat. “If you don’t give citizens who live in your country civilized treatment, these methods will sooner or later be exhausted and the whole people will oppose that. It is impossible to defeat your own people, it is impossible that a few people declare war and win,” she says.
- Gayane Mkrtchyan
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Today in Armenian history- 1806 Birth of educator and literary figure Ruben Papazyan in Constantinople. He died in 1857 in Smyrna.
- 1865 Birth of poet, translator Alexander Tsatooryan.
- 1879 The Azgaser Union is created in Constantinople.
- 1915 Start of the 11-day defense of the Armenian town of Taron (Western Armenia).
- 1919 Having been found guilty of serious crimes in the Genocide of the Armenians of Yozghat, Kemal Bay was hung in Constantinople's Sultan Bayazet square. He was the deputy governor of Yozgat.
- 2001 Armenian Genocide Heirs Settle New York Life Insurance Company Class-Action Lawsuit concerning policy holders who were victims of the 1915 Armenian Genocide.
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