Armenian Opposition Under Attack

Arrests and heavy media restrictions pile pressure on Armenian opposition.

By IWPR reporters in Armenia (CRS No. 435 12-Mar-08)

The Armenian authorities have strengthened their grip on the country, with the media operating under severe restrictions, dozens of anti-government activists in custody, and opposition candidate Levon Ter-Petrosian seeing his challenge to the recent presidential election result rejected by the constitutional court.

The outgoing president, Robert Kocharian, said on March 12 that the situation was now sufficiently under control to allow him to ease some of the restrictions imposed by the 20-day state of emergency he ordered following bloodshed on the streets of Yerevan on March 1, in which eight people were reported killed.

After a blanket ban on all news apart from that issued by the government, Kocharian said the authorities would now tolerate all media information that was not deemed to be “false or provocative”.

Ter-Petrosian, a former president of Armenia, failed to convince the constitutional court that the election result naming current prime minister Serzh Sarkisian as president should be overturned.

The main argument among several that Ter-Petrosian brought in justification of his appeal was that Sarkisian did not step down from his executive post for the duration of the election campaign, and also that the backing he received from his ally Kocharian was unfair.

In a statement to judges, Ter-Petrosian also cited provisions in the Armenian constitution which say a presidential poll cannot take place at a time when a state of emergency is in force, and that elections do not count as formally over until all legal complaints have been heard by the courts.

In a March 8 ruling, the constitutional court upheld the electoral commission’s decision to declare Sarkisian president. Judges did accept the opposition’s claims that violations occurred during the election and passed some of the evidence for this on to the prosecutor’s office, but they said this was not enough to call the entire poll into question.

Ter-Petrosian has vowed to continue his fight. Artak Zeinalian, who acts for him, told IWPR that the opposition leader would file a petition to the European Court of Human Rights, ECHR, arguing that voters’ rights had been violated and that the constitutional court should not have reviewed his appeal as long as the state of emergency was in force.

Legal expert Hrair Tovmasian said claims of Armenian electoral violations had been taken to the ECHR, but the constitutional court’s ruling was final.

The opposition continues to be under severe pressure, with dozens of activists now in custody. According to the prosecutor’s office, 84 people have been detained so far, while the opposition puts the figure at more than 100.

On March 10, the police arrested the head of Ter-Petrosian’s campaign headquarters, former foreign minister Alexander Arzumanian, and also the chairman of his Armenian National Movement’s board, Ararat Zurabian. Both men may be charged with trying to “usurp power”.

The police say they are searching for two parliamentarians, Khachatur Sukiasian and Sasun Mikaelian, and the editor of the Haikakan Zhamanak newspaper, Nikol Pashinian, and have asked the public for information on their whereabouts.

Earlier, parliament stripped Sukiasian and Mikaelian and two other members of their immunity. The others, Hakob Hakobian and Miasnik Malkhasian, were arrested immediately.

The opposition received a small boost from a statement of concern by United States Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matt Bryza, who visited Yerevan and told the Associated Press, "The violence really was deplorable. It seems clear that the reaction by the government was harsh and brutal."

Ter-Petrosian’s own fate now hangs in the balance. Justice minister Gevorg Danielian told Agence France Press, “Today the law-enforcement bodies have enough evidence to launch a criminal investigation regarding Levon Ter-Petrosian. The investigation will determine what charges will be presented against him. He has moved from the political field to the criminal one.”

US charge d'affaires Joseph Pennington warned against such a move, saying, “We strongly discourage those kinds of arrests that could be interpreted as political arrests and think that would not contribute to stability and reduction in tensions.”

One aspect of the state of emergency that has especially shocked Armenia has been a virtual media blackout of anything except official news – a situation that may be eased a little on March 13, according to President Kocharian.

In a statement issued on March 12, 14 media organisations expressed their alarm at the situation.

“Our constitutional right to disseminate and receive information has been violated; the universally-acknowledged principles of freedom of speech and press freedom have been infringed; the media are sustaining financial losses; censorship is being carried out in Armenia; and our country has found itself subject to a complete information blockade,” said the statement.

The state-of-emergency rules said the media were restricted to official information when it came to matters of state and domestic politics.

This halted the publication of both newspapers and websites that provided independent and opposition viewpoints. The websites of Radio Liberty in Armenian, www.azatuyun.am, and the pro-opposition television company A1+, www.a1plus.am, were effectively closed. Access to Youtube, which had been airing home-made videos of the March 1 violence, was also restricted for more than ten days.

According to the Armenian Internet Society, which issues domain names ending in “.am”, a list of out-of-favour websites has been issued by the national security service.

David Sandukhchian, director of the Centre for Information Law and Society, said that the security service had been exceeding its powers.

“You can draw an analogy between the internet as a means of communication and a printing press as a means of media production,” said Sandukhchian. “Basically the national security service has shut the printing press and blocked media access to it, irrespective of what it is producing.”

Armenians keen to get non-official news have been finding ways round the news blockade.

“My friends have taught me how to bypass the providers and read the news on Radio Liberty via proxy servers,” said Maria, a journalism student. “Now I can get information one way or another.”

Anti-government newspapers are not coming out. Haik Gevorkian, the acting editor of Haikakan Zhamanak, said that the printers were refusing to publish his paper.

“We’ve sent a written request to the national security service asking for an explanation of what official information was,” Gevorkian told IWPR. “For example, is a statement by the Heritage opposition parliamentary fraction official or not? We didn’t get an answer.”

Gevorkian said that he and his colleagues were studying their legal options.

The editor of the Aravot newspaper, Aram Abrahamian, said that he had received a visit from a national security official.

“I told him we wanted to print a small item in the paper saying we didn’t want to publish one-sided official information so we’d leave some pages empty,” said Abrahamian. “The officer said that a publication of a paper with empty pages would inflame the situation.”

Anna Israelian, a journalist with Aravot, said that she was receiving calls from the relatives of detainees or politicians with new information but that she felt a “strong sense of powerlessness” because there was nothing she could do with the information.

The state of emergency formally applies only to Yerevan but in practice the media is also being restricted outside the capital.

The director of one regional television company said the heads of TV stations in the country’s second and third cities, Gyumri and Vanadzor, had been summoned to a meeting by national broadcasting boss Grigor Amalian and instructed to broadcast only official information.

Nune Sarkisian, Armenia director of the media development organisation Internews, said self-censorship was also now widespread.

“The state is definitely abusing the state of emergency,” she said. “The whole broadcasting operation has turned into a propaganda machine.”

Independent analyst Stepan Grigorian said public resentment at the authorities’ behaviour was high, and protests were likely to continue once the state of emergency was lifted, with some risk of renewed violence.