A. Sakunts, “They should not create a situation unbearable for the group”
11:16, July 26, 2016 | News, Other news
While the call-leaflet delivered today by the National Security Service to ‘Sasna Tsrer’ group members is fully consistent with the approaches of the Criminal Code, the call itself should contain clear-cut guarantees for such approaches. Such observation was made by human rights activist Artur Sakunts in his interview to Lragir.am.
“The leaflets indicate in which case criminal prosecution against people might be stopped. This is clear, except for the incident of the colonel’s death, the investigation of which should result in an assessment rather than in preconceived qualifications. If viewed as an individual document and as a legal document, of course, it is fully substantiated. But the matter is that now we have a situation in Armenia, in which it appears impossible not to see any links between this individual legal document and the other legal and political processes”, Sakunts said.
According to him, particularly given the practices of criminal prosecution against citizens at the hands of the Investigative Committee and the Police, on the one hand, a rather groundless behavior of criminal prosecution is displayed and on the other hand, the most mitigated mode of legal methods by the NSS seems strange in this context.
Sakunts believes that this gives rise to some distrust since we face here a differentiated approach. In some cases, obvious pressure is exerted on activists and persons and in other cases quite a loyal approach is adopted going as far as to propose release from criminal liability.
“Let alone the 3rd option as on July 20 in the evening, citizens suffered inhuman treatment, namely violence, pressure and torture. Here, we don’t see the same consistent behavior in terms of the police officers responsible for such actions. That is, there are obvious gaps in the practices of the legal institutes”, the human rights activist says.
According to Artur Sakunts, the NSS should have provided guarantees in that very text, but there are none. The text has an approach of an ultimatum; it gives ‘Sasna Tsrer’ group an ultimatum. However, on the other hand, it is ignored that the action proposed by the ultimatum and procedure is directly linked to the political issues which they have to take into account no matter they want to do so or not. The goals proclaimed by the group, namely Serzh Sargsyan’s resignation and release of the political prisoners, are legitimate for the public as well. The pubic supports the goals of the armed group; yet, there are certain reservations and controversies in regard of the methods. However, at the same time the public appears to be convinced by its position that it has also agreed that since there are no political and legal tools in place, this armed method against the current impunity is the ultimate and most extreme method to resolve certain issues.
“And now given this situation, the authorities should not take an ultimatum approach, but rather ensure, among others, the principle of equality before the law as the initial essential guarantee that everybody will be held liable for their actions, regardless of their positions. If such practices are not in place as a guarantee, this isolated approach remains without any guarantee and inspires no trust”, he added.
The human rights activist also stated that one of the steps that might be taken by the authorities is that detention as a preventive measure against Zhirayr Sefilyan is changed and there was an opportunity to start a dialogue on the issues of public concern raised by the group. But today we see no such steps, and therefore, the call above makes any trust vanish into the air.
The human rights activist also asks a question: and who said that if the group surrendered, they would not face criminal prosecution? He notes that after releasing hostages of their own free will, the ‘Sasna Tsrer’ group witnessed a breach of arrangements by the authorities.
“For over 20 hours, the authorities have deprived the area of the patrol and guard service regiment of electricity and the group members of food and means of communication. In other words, this very behavior in itself casts doubt on the trust in this proposal. That is, the very process has been already accompanied by breaches”, he emphasized.
Artur Sakunts urges the authorities to change their practices towards the group as it is obvious that the authorities have not given up their method of using force. They should not create a situation unbearable for the group members; otherwise, this would inevitably result in escalated aggression and incite them to actions that would formally serve as a basis for the authorities to use force.
“And the authorities will use it to “justify” themselves. But this primitive mechanism should be abandoned so that we can prevent bloodshed”, the human rights activist said.