Epress.am News from Armenia
Ararat Khandoyan, an inmate at Yerevan’s Nubarashen prison, has again been transferred to a solitary confinement cell with broken windows, where he is being held in inhuman and degrading conditions, according to a letter sent by Khandoyan to his lawyer Ara Gharagyozyan.
“[…] The cell is damp; cold penetrates the cell through the broken window. I’m currently going through a medical treatment, and prison officials are therefore subjecting me to inhuman treatment by holding me in potentially life-threatening conditions. I have also not been provided with hygiene products and basic necessities,” the latter says.
Speaking to Epress.am on Friday, Gharagyozyan said he was not aware of the reasons for Khandoyan’s transfer to solitary confinement. The lawyer, however, has already sent appeal letters to Nubarashen administrator Artur Osikyan, Armenian justice minister Arpine Hovhannisyan, and the office of the Human Rights Ombudsman, whose staffers have promised to visit Khandoyan on Saturday.
Ararat Khandoyan is the brother of Nagorno-Karabakh war veteran Arayik Khandoyan, one of the three dozen members of the “Sasna Tsrer” anti-government group that seized a Yerevan police station in July to demand Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan’s resignation and the release of Founding Parliament opposition movement Jirayr Sefilyan. He was arrested on July 21 during clashes between police and supporters of Sasna Tsrer and is being accused of taking part in mass disorders and using violence against a police officer.