Mariam Gishyan, a mother of five has a mixed feeling of anxiety, insult and embarrassment, when she recalls the winter of 2004, the barricaded Buzand Street and the day they were thrown out [of their home].

“We don’t call it throwing out, it was a massacre for us, a deportation,” says Mariam, her voice still trembling with anger.

For the Gishyan family it was deportation in the very sense of the word and the memories return this time of year and especially as Yerevan’s Northern Avenue has celebrated its first anniversary.

“It was night. We heard noise, I realized from the sound the bulldozers were destroying my house, I hardly managed to pull my children away from the wall, the wall went down, my elder son’s foot remained under the ruins and broke,” says Mariam, whose family like hundreds of others who used to live on the territory under construction located in the Northern and the Main avenues was not only evicted, but also, as she says, “narrowly escaped and was thrown out”.

The Gishyans used to have a 130 square meter house with about 1,000 square meters of land on Lalayants Street, but their right of property was recognized null and void in the interest of and the family of six lost its home in the very center of the town.

“I have not been present at the courts, have not even been invited, that is, everything has been done without my knowledge in my absence, and they have decided whatever they wanted to,” says the widow, whose priority today is to not end up homeless. “We stay in the street if we don’t have money; how I can pay the rent? We stay with this or that relative; children spend the daytime and get food at Orran (social agency), but that’s not a life, it’s not a solution, we used to lead a normal live, why were we thrown away – for ‘state needs’?!”

The words ‘for the state needs’ became synonymous to misery for people living in the area of the construction. Hundreds of people were deprived of their own houses without getting a proper compensation.

There was enthusiasm about having beautiful buildings and streets, when in 2000 President Robert Kocharyan presented the program of Yerevan construction, and many of the residents in Yerevan were happy with the perspective; but enthusiasm didn’t last long for those whose homes stood in the way.

“The Northern Avenue was build at the expense of our right for property and the lives of many; 8 people died of strokes or heart attacks during the ousting,” native of Yerevan Irina Yedigaryan says, recalling October 6, 2004, when Yedigaryan lost both her 150 year old house she had inherited from her fathers, and also her sister.

“My sister was dying, and the doctors said she couldn’t be moved, it’s impossible to oust her, my sister would ask those who came to oust us to let her die in her own home, then they could do whatever they wanted to, but they threw us all out and my sister passed away that day.”

For her 12-room house and 1,000 square meters of land located just on the crossroad of Teryan and Pushkin streets Yedigaryan was paid compensation in $12,000, when one square meter in the center of the city in those years cost at least 900 dollars.

“Evaluators have not visited our home. My house both occupied a large area and was also included in the list of protected monuments, but they put the court decision before me and threw me out of the house,” says Yedigaryan.

Almost all the court verdicts upon the appeals of the citizens end with the sentence: “To force to sign the contract and to oust” that became the beginning of the struggle of those who owned property in the Northern and Main avenues as well as an end to their comfortable life.

Today Yedigaryan rents a small apartment in the suburb of Yerevan, the 5th district of Nork, with furniture and possessions from the previous house stored in the basements of her relatives and friends.

Sedrak Baghdasaryan, chairman of the Victims of the State Needs NGO says there were not the state needs but some people’s money at stake, and “money always has priority over the rights of ordinary citizens”.

Having studied the cases of about 300 property owners, Baghdasaryan says the municipality and the companies organizing construction have shown a highly discriminating approach.

“Everything has been done arbitrarily; those who had support got a proper, even higher, compensation, and those who had not – appeared in court and were robbed,” says Baghdasaryan substantiating his words with documents:

“Look, the company organizing the construction, for instance, has paid $104,000 for 110 square meters to Ruzanna Avoyan, a resident of house number 21 at Lalayants Street and has allotted her 600 square meters of land lot in old Nork district, whereas Knarik Arakelyan, an owner of 115 square meters in the neighboring section of the same street has been given just $46,000.”

The family of Tonoyans, with 5 property owners in Pushkin deadlock, is another example of those who gained in the situation. The Tonoyans have received three 3-roomed and one 2-roomed apartment; whereas other owners of an equal property have not received money for even a one-room apartment.

But there were few who profited; and those who did not wish to sell their property for a price 2-3 times less than the market value went to court and lost their case in every one of more than 100 cases.

“No citizen ever won any of the cases within the 7 years; the more than 100 cases can’t be wrong, it’s impossible. This shows the citizens are simply deprived of their right for a just court trial,” says human rights defender of Armenia Armen Harutyunyan.

Irina Yedigaryan has faced trial 15 times and has lost all of the cases.

The European court (of human rights) has become a last hope for both Yedigaryan and many like her, where 13 cases on violation of property rights have been taken for consideration; there is already one victory.

The first lucky citizen is Gagik Tchghryan, whose real estate was assessed by the Artin Enterprise Ltd cooperating with the Program Implementation Office at $47,000, whereas an independent organization evaluated it at $190,000.

In 2007 the European Court for Human Rights considered the Tchghryan case and suggested that the government of the Republic of Armenia pay $150,000 for the property.

“The government comes to an agreement when it is confident it will lose the case, but before the question was considered in the European Court the government accepted it was wrong and appeared ready to pay three times more than it offered. It’s obviously clear, but this is what the rest of the cases will face in the future,” says ombudsman Harutyunyan.