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LACK OF CREDIBILITY IN THE “CASE OF THE SEVEN” AT INTERNATIONAL LEVEL

Politics


“We have to wait for the final opinion during PACE January session,” said Republican faction deputy Armen Ashotyan in regard to the resolution of the PACE Monitoring Committee in Paris.

According to the resolution, the issue concerning the suspension of empowerments of the Armenian delegation to the Assembly will be put up for a vote during the PACE January session.

“If the Monitoring Committee’s approach is registered during the PACE session, the PACE will apply double standards for member countries by depriving voting rights of Armenia and not countries like Azerbaijan and Turkey. I will consider that as political repression. Secondly, the European Union is the heart of politics for us and the Council of Europe is simply the gates,” told “A1+” Armen Ashotyan and added that Armenia can’t tolerate such unfair treatment.

So, if the Council of Europe doesn’t deprive the voting rights of Turkey and Azerbaijan, it should not deprive Armenia either regardless of what is really happening in Armenia? In response to that, Ashotyan said that unlike Turkey and Azerbaijan, Armenia hasn’t finished the job.

Member of the Heritage faction Stepan Safaryan says that the adopted draft resolution is serious. He recalls that his party had warned in September that not only would Armenia face sanctions, but also the unfavorable “political prisoner” formulation for the country.

Safaryan is concerned about two things: “It has turned into a custom that foreign powers must tell us what to do. The dissidence inside and persuasions no longer have an impact on the administration. The second danger is the loss of vigilance of the administration. The administration’s behavior is inadequate to the developments taking place in Armenia. It doesn’t realize the heavy consequences that the CE sanctions may have for the country.”

Safaryan believes that the administration must solve two issues by January.

“The international community is waiting for the impartial inquiry of what happened on March 1-2. There is a lack of credibility in the “Case of the Seven” at the international level. The Monitoring Committee notes that the corroborating evidence on the “Case of the Seven” is unacceptable. The Committee is telling the administration to set aside the preliminary inquiry of the General Prosecution and the special investigative service and say what happened on March 1-2.” The second step that the administration must take, according to Safaryan, is amnesty.

“All political prisoners must be released.”

Safaryan recalled that the two significant points stated in the draft resolution of the Monitoring Committee were the targets of the visit of the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights. He doesn’t have much hope that the RA administration will take steps before January.