Americas

Home page

Americas

US Helsinki Commission Co-Chair concerned over anti-semitism in Armenia

21 April 2008 18:02 (UTC +04:00)

Making a speech on the theme "Armenia after the election" Benjamin Cardin noted that in the â€œdocumentary filmâ€ demonstrated on pro-government H2 TV channel on February 14 former president Levon Ter-Petrosyan, whose wife was Jew, was accused of being Zionist spy, the protesters were discredited in participating in Jew-Israel coup d’eta against Armenia.
â€œI would have never thought about the existence of this kind of anti-Semitism in Armenia,â€ he said.
Arman Grigorian, spokesman for Armenian presidential candidate and leader of the opposition movement Levon Ter-Petrosyan noted large-scale intimidation of voters and opposition’s representatives, violations of vote counting procedures and ballot stuffing had been recorded. According to him, in seventeen constituencies, which is more than 15 percent, counting was assessed to be bad or very bad.
â€œEven if this number has a 5 percent sampling error, and only 10 percent of the precincts in the country as a whole have had a similar quality of vote counting, it is hard to be confident in the central electoral commission’s announcement of a first-round victory for Serzh Sargsyan. The numbers actually become more suspect, the more of that report we read. We learn that 95 precincts had a voter turnout exceeding 90 percent. But 44 out of these 95 had a voter turnout exceeding 95 percent, and higher turnouts were perfectly correlated with higher numbers for Serzh Sargsyan. In one precinct 100.36 percent of the eligible voters turned out to vote.â€ he said.
According to the official data of the government, 3,228,300 people have Armenian citizenship, while the World Factbook prepared by the Central Intelligence Agency for 2006 shows that the 2,976,372 people have Armenian citizenship. 750,000 of them live in Russia and Europe. It means that as at February 19, 2008 2,226,372-2,478,300citizens lived in Armenia. According to the official figures, by February 19, 2008 there were 600,300 citizens under 15 in Armenia. There are approximately 745,300 citizens under 18 in the republic at present.
These facts show that as at February 19, 2008 1,481,072-1,733,000 people had the right to vote. According to the Armenian Central Election Commission, 1,671,027 citizens voted. Basing on the figures in the World Factbook prepared by the Central Intelligence Agency 1,89,955 electorate voted in the republic. Basing on the statistics of the Armenian government, it turns out that 96.4% of the electorate participated in the elections.â€
Grigorian said 44 families controlled 55% of the GDP.
The spokesman says that the regime declared the end of the state of emergency on March 20th, but the streets are still full of riot police, and people are being arrested for not more than taking a stroll down Northern Avenue.
â€œThe regime claims to seek dialogue, but it has arrested over 145 people, most of them on trumped-up charges. It claims to have lifted the restrictions on free speech, but it orders the tax police to check the books of oppositional newspapers. any further dialogue will be doomed, if the regime refuses to allow an international investigation into the events of March 1st and if it refuses to repeal the newly adopted constitutional amendment to the law on conducting meetings, assembles, rallies and demonstrationsâ€. The regime will have to grant a broadcasting license to the independent A1+ channel. A. Grigorian called the United States and West to unequivocally side with freedom against tyranny. â€œFreedom and Tyranny are precisely the two sides in Armenia’s struggleâ€.
The U.S. Helsinki Commission held hearings on post-election situation in Armenia on April 17.