Ministry didn’t respond
On February 14, the independent monitoring group headed by lawyer Artur Sakunts presented RA Minister of Justice Hrair Tovmasyan with an account regarding Artik penitentiary prisoner Nikol Pashinyan exercising the right to write letters and to submit appeals through the penitentiary administration in order to have contact with the outside world.
In the account, it is stated that during the first visit on 9 January 2011, the monitoring group found out that Nikol Pashinyan had addressed at least 10 letters to the "Haykakan Zhamanak" editorial staff one of which had not been sent and that the Artik penitentiary administration had kept the letters.
"It is obvious that those letters didn't reach the addressees. First, Nikol Pashinyan handed the letters to the administration to register them. However, the administration didn't register them, saying the letters hadn't been submitted," said head of the monitoring group Artur Sakunts during today's press conference.
The RA Ministry of Justice still hasn't sent a response to the monitoring group.
"According to the order, instead of receiving a response letter from the Justice Minister within three days, the penitentiary administration gave a release to the presses yesterday and since we have no response, we are releasing this account," said head of the independent monitoring group.
The monitoring group was also concerned over the fact that Nikol Pashinyan's cell was investigated after the visit.
"Nikol Pashinyan personally told me about that. The administration thought that our group had tried to transfer or could have transferred something. This is a coarse attempt to case a shade on our activities," said Artur Sakunts. The monitoring group announced that despite everything, it will continue its activities.
