Presidential candidate Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s March 2, 2008 announcement of ending the street protests in Yerevan, posted at his website, blames government “agents” for rioting and looting on the night of March 1, 2008.
The announcement, posted in Armenian, states:
[…]
The authorities’ provocations were continued by their agents who – being quite far from the [actual] protest – broke windows of stores, looted some shops and damaged cars on Mashtots Avenue.
Armenia Liberty, among others, informs that the presidential protests have ended in Armenia largely due to opposition leader and former president Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s call to his followers to leave. So, despite expectations of violence, this seems to be a good end for the time being. The opposition, nonetheless, says it will continue its fight.
The standoff between Armenian security forces and thousands of opposition protesters appeared to have ended without further violence early Sunday after opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosian urged his supporters to go home, citing a state of emergency imposed by President Robert Kocharian.
“I do not want any victims and clashes between police and innocent people. That is why I am asking you to leave,” Ter-Petrosian said in a message read out to more than 2,000 people that barricaded themselves outside the Yerevan mayor’s office.
According to Reuters news agency, most of the crowd headed away from the square but a group of around 60 people refused to go home and set fire to abandoned police vehicles. Some of them accused the former Armenian president of being a traitor.
“We will continue our political struggle for democracy and rule of law,” Ter-Petrosian’s election campaign office said in a separate statement. An official there said riot police did not attack the dispersing crowd or arrest any of the former president’s associates who organized the rally on Saturday.
[…]
In a separate address to the nation, Kocharian said the violence was the main reason why he decided to declare the 20-day emergency rule. It means, among other things, that all rallies and other public gatherings will be banned in Yerevan until March 20. It also places serious restrictions on press freedom, with local media outlets allowed to report only official news communiqués.
Press Statement
Sean McCormack, Spokesman
Washington, DC
March 1, 2008
All Political Forces in Armenia Should Avoid Violence and Engage in Political Dialogue
The U.S. deeply regrets today’s unrest in Yerevan, Armenia, and calls on all sides to avoid further violence, act fully within the law, exercise maximum restraint, and resume political dialogue. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Daniel Fried spoke today with Armenian PM Sargsian to make these points. The U.S. Charge d’Affaires has been in touch with the opposition to deliver this same message. Both sides are responsible for helping to re-establish order and return to political dialogue. Any unlawful actions such as violence and looting worsen the situation and must stop. We hope that the State of Emergency declared today will be lifted promptly and that political dialogue resumes. Political dialogue is the best way for all concerned Armenians to demonstrate responsible leadership and support for the future of Armenia and democracy.
While I have myself started a petition calling on Armenia’s authorities to end violence against presidential election protesters, I am not too comfortable with what the Armenian Civil Society is doing. I think the organization is contributing to the polarization in Armenia by asking the U.S. Congress to condemn the events. Moreover, characterizing Armenia’s authority as a “repressive regime” demonstrates lack of knowledge and understanding of political establishments on the part of the LA group. Armenia’s government is authoritarian but, relatively speaking, it is not repressive. In fact, although rumors of police brutality are most likely true in all details a repressive regime would have used other means to defend the establishment.
Anyhow, if you agree with the Armenian Civil Society you may call your Congressman. But I believe Armenia first needs social and not political reforms because the problems embedded in the latter often reflect the unaddressed issues of the former. One example is the extreme polarization and accusations drawn from xenophobic sentiments against demonized enemies.
Azerbaijani journalist Elmar Hüseynov was murdered outside his home in the capital Baku, three years ago on Sunday. His case has become a symbol of the continuing human rights abuses faced by journalists in the country.
The outspoken editor-in-chief of Azeri opposition magazine Monitor, Hüseynov was shot seven times walking out of a lift on 2 March 2005. Thought to be the victim of a contract killing, Hüseynov’s death is the most serious case in a continuing series of assaults on opposition journalists.
His colleagues and international press freedom organizations ascribed his murder to the political content of the newspaper, which closed following his death.
In July 2006, a former Ministry of Internal Affairs official, charged with kidnapping and murder, admitted to Hüseynov’s murder while testifying at his own trial. He claimed that he carried out the killing on behalf of the former Minister of Economic Development, himself on trial for plotting the overthrow of the government. So far no one has been prosecuted for Hüseynov’s murder.
[…]
Several journalists in Azerbaijan are in jail, some of them for over a decade.
One of those still in prison is opposition newspaper editor Eynulla Fatullayev who, after years of harassment by the authorities, was tried twice in 2007. He was sentenced to 11 years’ imprisonment on charges of defamation, terrorism, incitement of ethnic hatred and tax evasion.
Eynulla Fatullayev worked on Monitor until it was closed. He then launched two popular opposition newspapers, Realny Azerbaydzhan (Real Azerbaijan) and Gündelik Azarbaycan (Azerbaijan Daily). Both newspapers closed in May 2007 after a series of inspections of their premises by the authorities.
Fatullayev has been one of the few to challenge official anti-Armenian xenophobia in Azerbaijan and his 2005 visit to Nagorno-Karabakh, a de facto independent Armenian region that broke away from Soviet Azerbaijan in the 1991, was crucial for the arrest. After returning from Karabakh to Azerbaijan, Fatullayev wrote a story on the killing of several hundred Azeris in the city of Khojalu during the war by Armenian soldiers raising the possibility that the Azeri militia in charge of Khojalu might have deliberately prohibited Khojalu residents from leaving despite Armenian leadership’s offer for a humanitarian corridor.
A1Plus is not the only media outlet that has stopped reporting the ongoing presidential election protests in Armenia due to de jure state of emergency. Websites that were updated several times an hour are now silent complying with Armenia’s Constitution that gives censorship rights to the government when the latter declares state of emergency.
Hetq.am, a website of investigative journalists that I occasionally contribute to, informs (in Armenian) that they “have to limit their work” under the law while ArmeniaNow, a source widely seen as among the most objective, has stopped updating its homepage without even reporting the State of Emergency.
Armenian blogs have become somewhat passive too in the last few hours but it is too early to conclude that they perceive their activities to be limited under the law.
At least one pro-opposition media in Armenia now says it will stop reporting political news for the next 20 days due to the declared state of emergency. The website of A1Plus, a news group that is long banned from Armenia’s air, informs its readers that under Armenia’s law it won’t report political developments.
State of emergency is declared in Armenia, and, under such circumstances and according to the law, it is prohibited to provide information on the political situation and developments. The state of emergency will last for 20 days; during this time you can read cultural, sports and official [political] news [provided by the authorities]. We are asking for your forgiveness.
As I mentioned earlier today, the declaration limits political reporting to copy-pasting of official releases – raising the question of whether blogs based in Armenia fall under the ban. Technically, Armenian websites and blogs outside Yerevan may operate freely but almost every major media outlet is based in the capital city – including all the blogs I know from Armenia. I guess my fellow bloggers in Armenia should either relocate to another region from Yerevan for a few days or send their posts to bloggers abroad (like me) for publishing.
I will be glad to provide that service and guarantee anonymity – if requested. The constitution doesn’t prohibit individuals from sharing information with others. This blog’s e-mail is [email protected].
The 20-day state of emergency temporarily bans the following:
Gatherings, protests, marches and other mass activities
Strikes and activism leading to strikes
Activities by those political parties and NGOs that have led to the state of emergency order
The order also states:
Enforcement agencies, if necessary, may limit transportation routes and search individuals
Media reports concerning “state and interior issues” can be published exclusively using official information provided by the authorities (does this apply to blogs based in Armenia?)
[Distribution] of all kinds of political publications (print) are banned unless approved by the authorities
Talin Suciyan, an Armenian journalist born in Turkey, just informed from Yerevan in an e-mail to an online group that “state of emergency has been declared for 20 days in Armenia.”
UDPATE: Talin has sent another e-mail clarifying that the emergency applies to the city of Yerevan only and not to the rest of Armenia.
A contributor to this blog has sent me an Amnesty International video titled, “Your Signature is More Powerful than you Think,” in the hope that people around the world will start a petition calling on the authorities to stop the use of violence againgst presidential election protesters in Armenia. The video is below; the petition I was compelled to start is here.
