Armenia: Amnesty Does Little to Deflect Opposition Ire

More than a dozen Armenian opposition activists have now been released from prison under a June 19 amnesty, but little sign exists that Armenia's opposition is content with the outcome.

Shouting "Justice!" and "Freedom!," some 2,000 opposition supporters joined a pipe-smoking Levon Ter Petrosian in downtown Yerevan on June 22 to greet released prisoners. Chocolate bars were handed round to passers-by in celebration.

But while Ter Petrosian had earlier declared that his opposition Armenian National Congress (ANC) would take a break from protests until September, the former Armenian president's released supporters have vowed to fight on for the release of 18 other opposition members.

"The guys in jail have not done anything [wrong]," declared Smbat Aivazian, a member of the opposition Republic Party's political council and a former minister of government revenue. "We will fight twice, a dozen times more fiercely!"

On June 23, senior Armenian National Congress member Davit Shahnazarian announced plans for a Yerevan rally next week about the amnesty.

Shahnazarian declined to discuss precise tactics, but released opposition members told EurasiaNet that they bear no gratitude for the amnesty.

"We are against the amnesty because we have not committed any crime to be forgiven," parliamentarian Suren Sirunian, who had faced a four-to-five-year prison sentence, told EurasiaNet. Added former Foreign Minister Alexander Arzumanian, who worked as Ter Petrosian's presidential campaign manager: "Amnesty is not something to be celebrated."

Non-ANC-aligned politicians have expressed similar skepticism about the June 19 amnesty, the largest in Armenia's history. Heritage Party parliamentarian Zaruhi Postanjian, a delegate to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), contends that the amnesty was only "a political way to settle accounts." Parliament rejected a Heritage Party proposal to include the names of 50 arrested opposition members in the amnesty bill.

The June 22 sentencing of Sasun Mikayelian, a former member of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia who joined the opposition roughly a month before the March 2008 crackdown, underlines the amnesty's limits, opposition members argue. Mikayelian was sentenced to eight years in prison for allegedly organizing public unrest and bearing unlicensed weapons.

Hovhannes Igitian, a former PACE envoy and current opposition member, argues that Mikayelian was given an eight-year sentence - too long to qualify for the amnesty - as a reminder of what can happen to those who part ways with the government.

Republican Party of Armenia spokesperson Eduard Sharmazanov dismissed the notion. Sharmazanov put the opposition's lack of amnesty enthusiasm down to sour grapes.

"The opposition is not in the best condition," Sharmazanov said. "They wanted amnesty, [they have it, and] now they complain. They need to understand the president is a man of his word and did what he promised."

The National Assembly approved President Serzh Sargsyan's amnesty request by a 98-1 vote on June 19. Three parliamentarians abstained.

PACE, which is in the midst of discussions about Armenia's reforms after the March 2008 crackdown on opposition protesters, stated on June 22 that the amnesty marked "progress," but that "the monitoring regime for Armenia will remain in force to watch the way the declared amnesty is brought into effect."

Editor's Note:Marianna Grigoryan is a freelance reporter in Yerevan.