In addition to supporting Mr. Sakunts’ appeal, Human Rights Watch calls upon the General Procuracy to take measures to secure the immediate release of Mr. Sakunts, using the prerogative it enjoys under Article 289 of the Code of Administrative Offenses.
Background to the case
Arthur Sakunts is president of the Vanadzor office of the Helsinki Citizen’s Assembly (HCA), a nongovernmental organization that works in the fields of human rights defense, conflict resolution, and civic activism. HCA Vanadzor office fielded a team of observers to monitor the conduct of both rounds of Armenia’s presidential elections, held February 19 and March 5.
HCA Vanadzor office reported observing a wide range of electoral abuses, such as: “bribery, unequal press coverage, suppression of opposition candidates and supporters, pressurizing of election commission representatives, falsification of votes.”
On March 10, HCA Vanadzor office informed the Vanadzor Mayor’s office of its intention to hold a public meeting in Vanadzor’s Artsakh Park on March 15, to protest and discuss election abuses. Artsakh Park was the main Vanadzor venue for rallies and public meetings of the various candidates during the presidential election. On March 13, Mayor Samvel Darbinian declined permission for the meeting in Artsakh Park, and proposed instead that it be held at a more remote location, near the town sports stadium. Mr. Sakunts responded by informing the Mayor’s office that HCA Vanadzor office intended to proceed with the meeting in Artsakh Park, notwithstanding the Mayor’s denial of permission.1
In the early hours of Friday March 14, a glass pane of the entrance door of the HCA Vanadzor office was broken, and a fire started inside the office. The fire was concentrated in the area by the entrance door, consuming the doormat, a chair, and part of the ceiling. Neighbors alerted the fire brigade, and the blaze was extinguished before it could spread to the rest of the office. The HCA Vanadzor office interpreted this as an act of intimidation, to deter them from holding their public meeting the following day.2 At this writing the fire department is yet to deliver its report, and no criminal investigation has been instituted.3
Arbitrary banning of the public meeting called by Arthur Sakunts
On March 14, Vanadzor police chief A. Alexanian summoned Mr. Sakunts and issued a formal warning not to hold the public meeting in Artsakh Park.
On March 18, Police Chief Alexanian showed Human Rights Watch the chain of official correspondence relating to that projected public meeting. Our representative transcribed a verbal translation of the documents, rendered during the meeting by the Armenian Helsinki Committee. The documents clearly demonstrate that Mayor Samvel Darbinian and Police Chief A. Alexanian, citing an invalid municipal decree, attempted to arbitrarily impede the HCA Vanadzor office’s plans for the public meeting.
The documents presented to Human Rights Watch included a letter, dated March 14, from Mayor Darbinian to Police Chief Alexanian,4 informing him that Mr. Sakunts had ignored the Mayor’s instruction to move the location of the planned public meeting to the area of the town sports complex. The Mayor requested the police chief “to take the appropriate measures to ensure that public order is not disturbed during the unsanctioned meeting.”
Mayor Darbinian cited provision 1 of Vanadzor municipal decree 707 of August 28, 2001, “On regulation of the conduct of meetings, wedding ceremonies, and funeral services in the community area,” as the legal basis for his decision denying permission for the meeting.5 Provision 1 stipulated: “To define the square near Vanadzor’s sports complex as the location for holding meetings.”
The mayor’s letter omitted to mention that he was compelled to annul provision 1 of municipal decree 707 on January 25, 2002.6 Its withdrawal followed an Armenian Court of Cassation ruling of January 11, 2002, which upheld a complaint from Mr. Sakunts. HCA Vanadzor office had filed its legal challenge to the Mayor’s use of provision 1 on the basis of its incompatibility with Articles 26 and 44 of the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia, which state respectively: “Citizens are entitled to hold peaceful and unarmed meetings, rallies, demonstrations, and processions,” and: “The fundamental human and civil rights and freedoms established under Articles 23 - 27 of the Constitution may only be restricted by law, if necessary for the protection of state and public security, public order, public health and morality, and the rights, freedoms, honor and reputation of others.”
Also oblivious to the invalidity of provision 1 of municipal decree 707, Vanadzor Police Chief Alexanian went ahead with his formal warning to Mr. Sakunts, stating inter alia that: “If the public meeting is held, measures will be taken in accordance with Article 180.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses.” Article 180.1 envisages punishment of up to fifteen days administrative detention for organizing and holding unsanctioned meetings and demonstrations.
The public meeting, Saturday March 15, 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.
At midday, Saturday March 15, Arthur Sakunts stepped outside his office on Haik Square, Vanadzor, and addressed a small crowd gathered there. Estimates of the crowd’s numbers at that stage range from thirty to fifty. They did not attempt to proceed to Artsakh Park.
On March 18, a Human Rights Watch representative visited Vanadzor and surveyed the location of the Saturday March 15 public meeting: the fire-damaged HCA Vanadzor office and Haik Square. Our representative talked to some of the participants of the public meeting, and also met with City Police Chief Alexanian, Lori Region Procurator Arthur Mkrtchian, and the judge who tried Mr. Sakunts, Mr. Vahan Hovanissian. The participants and the officials respectively offered conflicting accounts and interpretations of what happened at the public meeting.
Judge Hovanissian explained that a protocol prepared by the police constituted the main evidence considered by the court, and that it was supplemented by testimony from individual police officers, and from the defendant, Mr. Sakunts. The court decision he issued on March 15 recorded the following findings:
On 15.03.2003 at approximately 12:30 by the building 59 on Tigran Mets Avenue, Arthur Sakunts organized an unauthorized meeting with the participation of many people in front of the “Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly” office in Vanadzor. At that time, due to the meeting, traffic was jammed in both directions; horns were sounded, and normal traffic movement was disturbed. The police employees tried with loudspeakers to bring Arthur Sakunts to order, and requested him to desist from violating public order and to stop the unauthorized meeting. Arthur considered this to be intimidation and refused to obey the legal order of the police, and at the same time disturbed public order and permitted himself to use obscenities when addressing the police. Arthur Alberti Sakunts was taken to Vanadzor Police Department on 15.03.2003 at 12:55 p.m.
Police Chief Alexanian additionally claimed to Human Rights Watch that, under Mr. Sakunts’ direction, the participants of the meeting blocked the road, stopping traffic in both directions, and thereby endangered lives by potentially preventing the passage of ambulances. He further stated that women participants of the public meeting physically assaulted police officers.
Staff members of the HCA Vanadzor office interviewed by Human Rights Watch insisted that the gathering was peaceful. Two eyewitnesses from the Vanadzor branch office of the Armenian Helsinki Human Rights Association corroborated this claim. All but one of these witnesses reported that the number of participants in the public meeting did not rise above seventy.7 None agreed that they had spilled over into the road. Given that Haik Square has a large pedestrian expanse, and that nearly all witnesses place the number of participants at between forty and seventy,8 Human Rights Watch does not consider it likely that—barring a willful desire to block the traffic—participants in the public meeting would have spilled over into the road.
Given the competing versions offered by the police and the participants, Human Rights Watch turned to two local television journalists for their respective eyewitness accounts of the public meeting. Narine Avetisian of the Lori Telestudio stated that there is video footage to corroborate her account:
Arthur stood outside his door and started making announcements to the thirty or forty people gathered there. The police arrived and told everybody to disperse, because it was an unsanctioned meeting. They also told our cameraman and the Intercap camerawoman to stop filming, giving the same reason—that the meeting was unsanctioned. Arthur initially refused to obey the police order. There was shouting between the police and the participants. Arthur announced that the local authorities will have to answer for everything that happens, and he blamed the police and the mayor for the fire in his office. Passersby got interested, and numbers grew to about seventy or eighty. Passing cars and minibuses also stopped out of curiosity, and traffic was blocked for about five to ten minutes. But there was no critical situation, and the crowd was not on the road. After a short while, Arthur went back into his office and talked with the police in there for about twenty minutes. Then he came out to say that OSCE representatives were on their way and proposed everyone to come back in one hour, at 2:00 p.m., for another meeting. When we came back at 2:00 p.m. we found out that Arthur had been taken to the police station.9
Alla Nahapetian of the Intercap television station told Human Rights Watch:
The meeting was calm at first. About fifty people were there. But then the police came and ordered Arthur to stop talking through the microphone. The police asked my camera operator and I who had invited us. We told them that the Helsinki Citizens Assembly did. Initially the police tried to stop us from filming, then they relented. The police and the crowd were shouting at each other, but there was no violence. I did not notice anything in particular going on with the traffic, and as far as I could see, the road was not blocked.10
An unfair trial, and flawed verdict
At the short court hearing in the afternoon of March 15, Mr. Sakunts had no legal representation. Although Judge Hovanissian has stated to Human Rights Watch that it was an open hearing, Mr. Sakunts’ family and colleagues have insisted that they were not allowed to attend. The court did not call any witnesses in his defense and heard only police evidence against him.
Mr. Sakunts was tried under two articles of the Code of Administrative Offenses: the aforementioned Article 180.1, and Article 182: “Malicious disobedience of a lawful order of the police, or people’s militia.”
Judge Hovanissian correctly cleared him of the former charge, given the lack of any legal basis for considering the meeting to have been “unsanctioned.” However, he found Mr. Sakunts guilty of infraction of Article 182 on the grounds that:
As a result of his actions, Arthur Sakunts gathered a crowd in front of the dwelling building and as well as a crowd on Tigran Mets Avenue, which disturbed the peace of the residents and blocked the road, stopping people from moving. Normal traffic became disordered as the drivers of the cars were interested by Arthur’s speech (delivered through a megaphone), thus violating the traffic rules. Arthur Sakunts disobeyed the legal order of the police to immediately stop the action that was disturbing public order, but Arthur tried to resist and fulfilled the order only after a conflict had arisen between the gathered people and the police.
Human Rights Watch is concerned that the court’s findings were based on an incomplete presentation of the available relevant evidence. Based on its investigation detailed above, Human Rights Watch believes that there is substantial evidence calling into question the first instance court’s conclusion that the March 15 meeting posed a threat to public safety or order, justifying a police order to disperse the meeting. We are concerned that that order may have violated the meeting participants’ rights of free expression and association under the European Convention on Human Rights and may be an inappropriate basis for conviction of Mr. Sakunts under Article 182 of the Code of Administrative Offenses.
Additional Procedural Concerns
In addition to the foregoing information relevant to the substance of Mr. Sakunts’ appeal, Human Rights Watch would like to draw your attention to a number of procedural concerns we have regarding the case.
First, we are concerned that the March 15 court decision on Arthur Sakunts’s ten-day administrative detention sentence failed to notify Mr. Sakunts of his right of appeal. The decision states only that: “The procurator may appeal the decision within ten days.” The Lori Region procurator stated to Human Rights Watch that he has no intention of making such an appeal, unless instructed to do so by the Procurator General.11
A February 5, 2003 ruling reached by the Republic of Armenia Council of Court Chairmen 12 introduced into the Code of Administrative Offenses an appeal right consistent with Armenia’s obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights. The ruling reinterpreted Article 294 of the Code, granting those handed sentences such as that passed on Mr. Sakunts the right, within ten days, of appeal to the Criminal-Military Chamber of the Republic of Armenia Court of Appeal.
Second, we are deeply concerned that Mr. Sakunts is being held incommunicado and that his right to the assistance of a lawyer may be being obstructed. On March 18, Police Chief Alexanian told Human Rights Watch that he will not permit anyone, including lawyers, to visit Mr. Sakunts during the term of his administrative detention. Officials in Vanadzor have informed Human Rights Watch that he has declined to be legally represented. Since he is being held in incommunicado detention at Vanadzor police station, it has been impossible to verify this claim.13 We are concerned that detention of Mr. Sakunts under these circumstances may amount to a violation of Articles 5 and 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Human Rights Watch thanks the Court of Appeal and the General Procuracy for their consideration of our observations.
Yours sincerely,
Elizabeth Andersen
Executive Director
Europe and Central Asia division
1 “Regardless of Vanadzor Mayor’s Ban, Helsinki Citizen’s Assembly Will Hold a Rally,” Noyan Tapan news agency report, March 14, 2003, and letter 066 No. 1351, from Vanadzor Mayor Samvel Darbinian to Vanadzor Police Chief A. Alexanian, March 14, 2003.
2 “Call for Solidarity: Our Office was set on Fire.” Email communication from Helsinki Citizens Assembly Vanadzor Office to Human Rights Watch, March 14, 2003. The activists characterized the fire as: “an act of political terrorism and oppression… representing the peak of a series of violent actions to force our office to refrain from its activities around the elections and our intention to organize protest meetings.”
3 Two Vanadzor fire department officials told Human Rights Watch on March 18 that they may not deliver their report to Vanadzor police until March 24, since their service regulations allow them ten days to submit their conclusion. Vanadzor Police Chief Alexanian told Human Rights Watch on March 18 that there is no basis for a criminal investigation until and unless the fire department report concludes that arson caused the fire.
4 Letter reference: 066/ No. 1351 of March 14, 2003.
5 Letter reference 079/ No. 1279 of March 13, 2003.
6 A March 15, 2002 ruling of the Civil Chamber of the Republic of Armenia Court of Appeal – to which the Court of Cassation had forwarded HCA Vanadzor office’s complaint for further investigation – noted that Provision 1 of Vanadzor municipal decree No. 707 of August 28, 2001 was annulled by Vanadzor municipal decree 71 of January 25, 2002.
7 One HCA Vanadzor Office staff member told Human Rights Watch that, after passersby were drawn to join the public meeting, numbers may have risen from the original forty or so to about 150.
8 Human Rights Watch invited police chief Alexanian and his assistant to give an estimate of the number of participants. They declined to do so, yet claimed that it was a sufficient number to block the road.
9 Human Rights Watch telephone interview, Vanadzor, March 20, 2003.
10 Human Rights Watch telephone interview, Vanadzor, March 20, 2003.
11 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Regional Procurator Arthur Mkrtchian, Vanadzor, March 17, 2003, and interview, Vanadzor, March 18, 2003.
12 Decision No. 50, “Judicial practice on the application of Article 294 of the Republic of Armenia Code of Administrative Offenses.”
13 Given the impossibility of contact with Mr. Sakunts himself, the appeal filed by Mr. Hovik Arsenian was undertaken with the agreement of Mr. Sakunts’ parents.
