Victory for civil society?: Family, activists ascribe removal of ban on visiting jailed protest leader to their struggle
10:18, January 16, 2014 | News, Other news | Right to Fair Trial | Political Prisoners
The investigative body has lifted the ban to visit nationalist “Tseghakron” party’s jailed leader Shant Harutyunyan and his 13 friends, and as a result Harutyunyan’s wife and son were able to see him at the prison hospital.
Harutyunyan’s wife Ruzan Badalyan says she has no clue why the ban has been lifted and was caught by surprise, since law enforcement bodies have not offered any explanation on the sudden “change of heart”.
“I guess it is the result of our fight. At least, I believe so,” she says.
Harutyunyna, along with 13 supporters, were taken under arrest after the November 5 clash between the police and a group of demonstrators on Mashtots avenue, downtown Yerevan. Late last year their custody was extended for two more months. Harutyunyan and the others are accused of using dangerous and non-dangerous violence against an authority representative. Before the march of November 5, seen as a civil rebellion attempt, Harutyunyan had gone on a sitting strike for several days in Liberty Square with a slogan “I want a revolution”.
Human rights advocate Artur Sakunts, Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Vandazor office leader, told ArmeniaNow that the ban to visit has been waved due to civil society demands.
“We were rightfully believing that the ban on visits had no legal ground and that idea was in the basis of active civil involvement, hence we were demanding annulling that illegal decision, which has been achieved,” says Sakunts.
Harutyunyan was transferred to the prison hospital after a two-week hunger strike which led to his poor health condition; he stopped the strike at hospital.
On January 1 his supporters held an action of protest and a march demanding the release of the jailed activists. Earlier, on December 30, at “Barekamutyun” subway station an unidentified person used violence against Harutyunyan’s teenage son Shahen Harutyunyan, 14, and his friends when they were distributing flyers informing of the protest scheduled for January 1.
Human rights activists and oppositionists claim that Harutyunyan and his friends are classical political prisoners. They view the extended custody and ban on visits for family members as violations of human rights, a punishment for dissidence.
Helsinki Committee of Armenia chairman Avetik Ishkhanyan, who has visited Harutyunyan for a few times, told ArmeniaNow that “his calls claiming they possessed petrol bottles proved to be merely rhetorical, as no weapon was found, they were unarmed, even the wooden sticks they had was no weapon, just symbolic, it was a peaceful march and if the police did not interfere and refrained from violence, it would have been a peaceful march only.”
Prosecutor General Gevorg Kostanyan has stated that like any other citizen Harutyunyan will be held liable for his actions if the court finds him guilty.
Sakunts says imprisonment as a means of constraint applied to Harutyunyan and his supporters has to be changes as there are no grounds to believe either he or his friends might influence the preliminary investigation.
“Neither should it be applied to witnesses or victims, that’s absurd, they are both witnesses and victims. Let a pledge to not leave the city be used as a measure of restraint,” he says.