Protest Actions at the 37 Conference of FIDH

Levon Barseghyan, the chairman of “Asparez” journalist club announced beforehand that he would boycott the conference and raised posters which said: “Release the Political Prisoners” and “The Government kills, the Judges Conceal”. Protest actions took place during the speeches of G. Harutyunyan, the chairman of the Constitutional Court of Armenia, G. Danielyan, the minister of Justice of Armenia and D. Avetisyan, the chairman of the Criminal Cassation Court of Armenia. Particularly, former political prisoner Vardges Gaspari shouted: “Shame on you for allowing the violations of constitutional rights to take place”.

Artak Zeynalyan, the representatives of assignees of the victims of March 1st, 2008 informed the human rights defenders during his speech that no one had been called to responsibility for the murder of those 10 killed persons till present; no one even was questioned as a suspect.

Protest actions were also held by the Armenian National Congress (ANC), the oppositional power. On April 6, the ANC held a rally and S. Belhassen, the president of FIDH and a number of human rights defenders of the conference participated in the rally and called upon the authorities to release all political prisoners.