YEREVAN, JANUARY 9, NOYAN TAPAN. "We, the political prisoners of the Republic of Armenia, strongly protest against the RA ombudsman Armen Harutyunian's recent actions and behavior incompatible with his post," a joint statement of the imprisoned oppositionists reads. According to them, A. Harutyunian must be the first to give an assessment and condemn the political persecutions of thousands of people and the fact of the existence of more than a hundred political prisoners, and to respond to "about a hundred political trials on trumped-up charges", hundreds of cases of violation of human rights and freedoms every day, etc. The authors of the statement say that contrary to his rank and official duties, A. Harutyunian has become openly engaged in protection of the regime and covering up its illegalities. "... when he announces his program of monitoring the trial on "the case of the seven", he just makes an attempt to consider the illegal trial of the people recognized as political prisoners to be natural and normal, to gain time for the regime and save it once again from the expected PACE sanctions. The guilty attitude of the ombudsman to the violence committed recently against political prisoners in their places of imprisonment is blameworthy. Instead of demanding an immediate initiation of criminal proceedings in connection with these shameful facts, he has become involved in an internal investigation. He has also shown the same guilty indifference in the case when the political prisoners by means of torture are forced to write applications for pardon to the person who holds the post of Armenian president, and in this way, in essence, they will admit the crimes they did not commit and will lose status of political prisoner," is said in the statement which calls on A. Harutyunian to resign.

---