Imprisonment of Remaining 2 Political Prisoners Won’t Prevent HAK from Moving Forward

The last two men still imprisoned for their connection with the events of Mar. 1–2, 2008, who the opposition refers to as political prisoners and demands their release, were absent from today’s Armenian National Congress (HAK). Senior HAK official Levon Zurabyan in his speech today said that since Sarkis Hatspanian and Murad Bojolyan have appealed to HAK, saying that their imprisonment shouldn’t interfere with HAK’s move toward dialogue with the authorities, then HAK can move forward, respecting the “political prisoners’ principles and decision.”

Rally participants reacted positively to Zurabyan’s remarks, after which the HAK representative said one of the topics of their dialogue will be the violation of Hatspanian’s and Bojolyan’s rights, as well as the question of Hatspanian’s status in the country.

“After releasing each political hostage, the authorities tried to extract some concession from the [Armenian National] Congress. Their most important goal was for us to give up the dictatorship removal plan. But that didn’t come to fruition. We are going to continue to hold rallies and our main weapon is ensuring a high turn-out at these rallies,” he said.