Levon Ter-Petrosyan addresses letter to CoE Secretary General

Armenia's first President Levon Ter-Petrosyan addressed a letter to CoE Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland

"Dear Mr. Secretary General,

The deep political crisis, which emanated from the 2008 rigged presidential elections and is the result of a violent crackdown on the March 1 peaceful demonstrations and protests against fraud, remains unsettled even though more than two and a half years have passed since the day:

1. Despite repeated appeals by the international community, EU statements, as well as the demands of Resolution 1667/2009 along with three other resolutions passed by PACE, as many as 13 political prisoners continue to remain in prison for the sole reason of exercising their legitimate political rights.

2. The circumstances of the ten killings that occurred on March 1, 2008 have as yet not been disclosed. Nobody has been arrested or charged in connection with these crimes, while the courts continue to turn down all the petitions made by the legal successors of the victims.

3. The Freedom Square, which since Soviet times has been the traditional venue of popular rallies and political demonstrations in Armenia (the very reason why it was named Freedom Square), continues to remain banned for political actions. Suffice it to say that only during the last month ten petitions submitted by the opposition to hold public rallies there were illegally turned down by the authorities, who failed to provide any credible grounds for their decision.

4. All elections held in Armenia in the course of 2008-2010, including February 19, 2008 presidential, May 31, 2009 municipal in the city of Yerevan, January 10, 2010 by-elections for the National Assembly, as well as all other elections where the unified opposition was participating, were totally falsified. Those elections were accompanied by wide-spread violence, intimidation and beating of reporters, proxies representing opposition and independent observers, as stated in the OSCE final report on the 2008 presidential elections and the 2009 Human Rights Report of the State Department, which denied a victory to the opposition and violated the right of citizens to form their own government.

5. There is no single independent TV channel in the country, and A1 + Television remains closed.
The Council of Europe and PACE have their share of responsibility for the fact that the demands of Resolution 1667/2009 have not been met to this day and the political crisis remains unresolved. The Council of Europe continues to be unjustifiably tolerant, thus paving way for the re-occurrence of illegalities.

The Armenian National Congress remains in support of the demands sent on March 16 to the PACE Monitoring Commission within the framework of the alternative timetable to overcome the political crisis, including the immediate release of political prisoners and holding preterm presidential and parliamentary elections.

Noting, that the Council of Europe is responsible for the promotion of democracy, rule of law and protection of human rights in Europe, we also demand that more adequate measures be taken by the Council of Europe for Armenia's democratization, including establishing stricter monitoring regime for Armenia.

On behalf of the Armenian National Congress,

Levon Ter-Petrossian"

Source Publication: a1plus
Source: http://www.a1plus.am/en/politics/2010/10/1/thorbjorn-jagland

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