Epress.am News from Armenia
Seven inmates of the “Vardashen” penitentiary in Yerevan joined Nagorno-Karabakh war veteran, reserve army colonel Volodya Avetisyan's hunger strike, Gor Ghlechyan, a spokesman for the Justice Ministry's Penitentiary Department, told Epress.am Monday, November 2.
“They're protesting against the independent commission for early conditional release,” the official said.
Note, the retired colonel who was sentenced to 6.5 years imprisonment for fraud last year went on an open-ended hunger strike on Friday after an Armenian independent parole board rejected his second appeal for an early release.
In an earlier conversation with Epress.am Robert Revazyan, a member of penal institutions' monitoring group, said parole system in Armenia is not operating properly, and as many as 70% of the appeals get rejected by relevant authorities. Meanwhile, under Armenian law, prisoners become eligible to apply for parole once they have served two thirds of their sentence and maintained good behavior while imprisoned.