How can you send innocent people to jail?
Human Rights Activist Vardan Harutyunyan has addressed a letter to Serzh Sargsyan.
"Mr. Sargsyan
I spent the best years of my life in Soviet prisons and in exile to be able to live in a free and independent Armenia and, if necessary, to have a chance to write to the President of Armenia. The years of my imprisonment are left behind. I have been living in independent Armenia for twenty years but still I cannot address to you saying ‘Honourable President.' It gives me a pain. I regret to say that the controversial presidential elections in 2008, the post-election bloodshed of March 1, 2008, and the ensuing political persecution and violence initiated by you do not allow me to call you in that way."
Mr. Sargsyan, regardless of my attitude towards you, today you are sitting on the presidential chair. Much depends on you. You are a prince in this small country. You are beyond and outside the law. If your imaginations about the despotic ruler were such, then you are realizing your ideas. You are almighty in this country and everything depends on you. Both you and I know that we do not have and will not have justice and free courts in Armenia as long as you wish it. This is gospel truth. Given today's bitter reality, I am writing to you asking for mercy for the activists of the Armenian National Congress (HAK)
Everyone, including you, knows that those young people at bar are not criminals. Everyone knows that the court does not have any evidence proving their guilt. Everyone knows that they are promising young people concerned about the country's fortune. It is welcoming that young people take interest in social and political affairs of their country. I find it inexpedient to say more high-flown words. Now I am applying to you as a human being.
Mr. Sargsyan these young people perhaps are the same age as your children. You are their judge and you cannot prove the opposite. There is no point in doing it. No one will believe you. How can you send [so easily] to prison these innocent boys for their political viewpoints? How can you [so easily] rig elections, distort justice, involve criminal oligarchs into politics and protecting them destroy the work on which you have spent so many years!
Mr. Sargsyan if you do not feel pity for your long-term work, do feel pity for your children and grandchildren. Nothing is eternal in this world. Nor can you be in power for ever. I call on you to be guided for a moment by discretion, rather than by political expediency and false revenge. These young people should have the right to live freely after the end of you tenure in office. They should not be ashamed of injustice, persecution, violence, as well as unjustified and arbitrary sentencing of young people reported during your office.
We are at the threshold of presidential elections. People cannot forgive everything, including the rigged elections, the March 1 bloodshed, the existence of political prisoners, violence and persecution by police, obscenity of oligarchs, humiliating electoral bribes. Even a minor gesture can play a crucial role. Today you can avoid committing another sin and I call on you to seize that opportunity. Acquit the HAK activists, put an end to violence and persecution. Who knows fortune may smile upon you this time and you will not be forced to perpetrate another March 1 to maintain power."
