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“Shant Harutyunyan was worn-out, and I do not know what will happen, if he continues the hunger strike for another several days. Vahe Mkrtchyan is also in the same bad state, while, Liparit Petrosyan is more or less in a normal state”, told head of Public Monitoring Group at the Detention Facilities Artur Sakunts in a talk with Panorama.am reporter, who yesterday met with Vahe Mkrtchyan, Shant Harutyunyan and Liparit Petrosyan  detained over November 5 events.

It is worth noting that it has been more than 10 days (Shant Harutyunyan: 15 days) since the latter were in hunger strike and claimed abolishing the interdict to meet with relatives.  Shant Harutyunyan is currently placed at Yerevan- Kentron penitentiary, while, Vahe Mkrtchyan and Liparit Petrosyan  are in “Vardashen” penitentiary.

Moreover, according to Sakunts, Vahe Mkrtchyan’s rights are gravely violated, since the latter is placed in a cell, accompanied by people who do not strike. “It is deemed a grave violation, psychological pressure on a person. It is a degrading treatment and the Minister of Justice and the Penitentiary department Chief bear direct responsibility for that”, noted Artur Sakunts.

The Public Monitoring Group head, who met with the detainees, also addressed the refusal to grant access to the advocate of Shant Harutyunyan’s, currently placed at Yerevan- Kentron penitentiary, which was revealed by Shant’s wife Ruzanna Badalyan. The latter told us that advocate Inesa Petrosyan was not allowed to meet with Shant Harutyunyan because of holidays. “There can be no concept of working and non-working days for an advocate to meet with her defendant, in this particular case, the distinctive feature of Yerevan- Kentron penitentiary is that it is located in the National Security building and the advocate should pass through the NSS checkpoint. Since it was not a working day for them, the advocate could not get in. However, it could not serve a ground to prevent the advocate from meeting with her defendant since ensuring the entrance into the penitentiary is not the issue of the NSS but that of the Ministry of Justice. The Ministry of Justice should well have its officer at the NSS checkpoint to ensure the access of authorized persons into the institution. Thus, in the given issue the Ministry of Justice displays inactivity. Due to the inactivity of the Ministry of Justice the process of accessing into the Kentron Penitentiary is regulated by the NSS checkpoint service instead of the penitentiary checkpoint service. The responsible for the violation of Shant Harutyunyan’s rights in this case is the Ministry of Justice”, stressed Artur Sakunts.

According to the human rights activist, the preliminary investigation body investigating the criminal case filed in relation to the events that occurred on Mashtots avenue on November 5 is also indulged in inactivity.

“I believe that it is ungrounded to deprive the political prisoners of the right to have meetings and make phone calls and the preliminary investigation body cannot present any justification for that. We also record that no preliminary investigation as such is underway, no other investigative actions, including explanation, interrogation, confrontation apart from the notification over the results of forensic-biological examination were conducted.

In my opinion, the preliminary investigation body does not have any program and is functioning under political order. The preliminary investigation body was forced into a state to carry out political order but not  legal actions”, claimed Sakunts.

He also informed that in the near future they are going to present relevant demands to the Ministry of Justice, while, human rights organizations will come up with a statement.

It is noteworthy that Shant Harutyunyan and people detained with him are accused in exerting dangerous violence against the government representative.

Source: http://www.panorama.am/am/law/2014/01/08/artur-saqunc/