One of the main demands of the 37th Congress of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) held in Yerevan this week was that Armenia’s authorities release the opposition members now in jail on what the opposition believes are politically motivated charges.

After the presidential election of February 2008 many opposition activists were detained and then convicted and jailed on different charges. According to the data of the Armenian National Congress (ANC), during the past two years several thousand activists of the opposition were brought to police precincts, 500 people were detained, more than 150 were placed in custody. A total of 120 activists of the opposition were sentenced to imprisonment, mainly on charges related to mass disturbances on March 1-2, 2008. About 50 people were released from jail after the amnesty declared by the National Assembly in June 2009, others served their sentences in full or had been given suspended sentences.

It is already two years that the opposition represented by the Armenian National Congress and Heritage Party, as well as a whole number of Armenian human rights organizations have pushed for the release of whom they view as political prisoners. However, reports and documents of international structures still stop short of explicitly mentioning about the presence of political prisoners in Armenia, even though some acknowledge that in Armenia there are people detained on politically motivated charges.

At the latest rally of the opposition on April 6, ANC leader Levon Ter-Petrosyan said that the international community has made certain progress on this matter. As examples he cited tougher estimations in the human rights reports of the US Department of State, as well as Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe/Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR). And Ter-Petrosyan noted that whereas on the one hand it is the result of stubborn struggle of the opposition, on the other hand it is a method of pressure on the authorities over the Armenian-Turkish and Karabakh issues.

Fourteen oppositionists continue to be jailed today in connection with the March 1, 2008 events and other cases. Among them are Sasun Mikayelyan (a former MP and Karabakh war veteran), Harutyun Urutyan (ex-head of police of Gyumri), Murad Bojolyan (a former Foreign Ministry employee), five managers of Ter-Petrosyan campaign headquarters in different towns during the 2008 election, activists of the movement, others.