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  • More Opposition Leaders Arrested

    MORE OPPOSITION LEADERS ARRESTED

    Radio Liberty
    March 10 2008
    Czech Republic

    Two more close associates of former President Levon Ter-Petrosian
    were arrested on Monday as the Armenian authorities continued their
    unprecedented crackdown on the opposition resulting from last month's
    disputed presidential election. A senior U.S. diplomat, meanwhile,
    warned them against jailing the opposition leader as well.

    The latest detainees are Aleksandr Arzumanian, a former foreign
    minister and Ter-Petrosian's election campaign manager, and Ararat
    Zurabian, chairman of the former ruling Armenian Pan-National Movement
    (HHSh). Their lawyer, Hovik Arsenian, said they are likely to be
    charged with seeking to "usurp power" in the wake of the February
    19 election.

    Arsenian spoke to RFE/RL by phone from the headquarters of Armenia's
    National Security Service (NSS) where his clients were interrogated
    and kept in custody as of late evening. He dismissed as baseless and
    politically motivated the criminal cases brought against these and
    other prominent opposition politicians close to Ter-Petrosian.

    Arzumanian's and Zurabian's detention raised to at least 86 the number
    of Ter-Petrosian supporters jailed in the past two weeks.

    Among them are two opposition members of parliament. Two other
    parliamentarians stripped of their immunity from prosecution have
    gone into hiding.

    According to a spokeswoman for the Office of the Prosecutor-General,
    Sona Truzian, 73 oppositionists have already been formally charged with
    plotting a coup d'etat, organizing and participating in "mass riots"
    and other grave crimes. The charges mainly stem from the March 1 deadly
    clashes in Yerevan between riot police and thousands of opposition
    supporters demanding a re-run of what they see as a rigged election.

    "The political orientation of these individuals doesn't matter to
    the investigating body," Truzian said, referring to the detainees.

    "Investigators are bringing accusations against those people who
    organized and took part in mass riots and other events aimed at
    undermining constitutional order."

    The crackdown, which is not confined to Yerevan, is not letting up
    despite the international community's growing calls for the lifting
    of the state of emergency in the capital and a dialogue between the
    Armenian authorities and the Ter-Petrosian-led opposition.

    "We don't believe that further crackdown, further arrests, are the
    right way to go," Kurt Volker, the U.S. acting assistant secretary of
    state, for European and Eurasian Affairs, told RFE/RL from Washington
    on Monday. "We think that what needs to be done is to move toward
    lifting the state of emergency, assuring freedom of the media, assuring
    the freedom of assembly, assuring the operation of political parties,
    so that Armenia can walk back from this political crisis."

    Also expressing concern at the wave of arrests was Joseph Pennington,
    the U.S. charge d'affaires in Yerevan. "We have made clear to the
    Armenian authorities that while we certainly recognize the right and
    the obligation of the authorities to arrest and prosecute those who
    were involved directly in violent activities last weekend, there is
    a distinction that needs to be made between those people on the one
    hand and those who may have expressed views that were bothersome to
    the authorities," Pennington told RFE/RL.

    "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," he said.

    Pennington also warned that the authorities will only heighten the
    post-election tensions in Armenia if they follow through on their
    threats to arrest and prosecute Ter-Petrosian. "We do not think that is
    a step that would help to ease the situation here," he said. "We don't
    think it would be the right way. We don't think it would useful. We
    think it would probably increase tensions more than anything else."

    President Robert Kocharian said last week that "many in Armenia"
    believe that Ter-Petrosian too should be punished for the violent
    standoff that left at least seven protesters and one police officer
    dead. Prosecutor-General Aghvan Hovsepian likewise did not rule out the
    possibility of the ex-president's arrest, saying that the opposition
    actions were "managed from one center."

    Justice Minister Gevorg Danielian told the AFP news agency on Monday
    that law-enforcment authorities "already have sufficient evidence"
    to prosecute Ter-Petrosian. "The investigation will show which exact
    charges will be brought against him," Danielian said. "He has crossed
    from the political sphere to the criminal sphere."

    Ter-Petrosian has been under effective house arrest since the violent
    break-up earlier on March 1 of his supporters' non-stop sit-in in
    Yerevan's Liberty Square.
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