Observations of Artur Sakunts on the situation
16:40, July 22, 2016 | News, Other news
Below are the observations of human rights defender, Artur Sakunts, Chairman of Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor on the deadlock situation:
- ‘Sasna Tsrer’ group members should state a clear position excluding bloodshed or confrontation and a clear-cut position in favor of negotiations…;
- The authorities should immediately initiate criminal cases against the police officers who exerted violence against the peaceful protesters, civilians and journalists on July 17-21, 2017 and detained people for 18-30 hours without any justification and the police officials who issued such orders or instructions;
- Immediate review of the judicial acts on the criminal cases initiated without any grounds against the political prisoners and release of the political prisoners;
- Along with the investigation into the criminal case on Colonel Artur Vanoyan’s death, the state crime of March 1, 2008 should be investigated; the high position should not serve as a guarantee for evading punishment for the crime.
These are the minimum steps to be taken; otherwise, it will be impossible to prevent the bloodshed and find a way out of the crisis.
Any method of using force to overcome the crisis and find a way out of the crisis will ruin the expectations that the state is democratic, legal and sovereign…
So far, the authorities have taken no steps to prove that they are ready to enact real reforms, which is both a public requirement and a public aspiration and which may be real and substantial only with political and legal approaches.
We witness only illegal practices on the part of the authorities…
The criticism of the armed method used by ‘Sasna Tsrer’ group comes to serve the definite interests of the authorities unless the use of illegal and force methods by the authorities against the citizens, especially during these days, is not criticized at the same time.
The issue of whether the armed or civilized method will be perceived by the public as legitimate heavily depends on the behavior of both the authorities, and ‘Sasna Tsrer’ group and of course, mostly on the degree of readiness for changes on the part of the authorities /investigating the state crime of March 1/.
In this context, one can expect and then be sure that we will evade bloodshed and will not stand before a “broken” and in this case also a “burnt” trough…