Heritage: Open Letter to the Armenian Public

The forcible March closure of the Heritage Party’s headquarters, the subsequent surreptitious and illegal break-in at the already-sealed office, the criminal theft of information from its main computer, and the campaign of political pressure and persecution unleashed against members, supporters, and local chapters of a duly-registered political organization compelled Raffi Hovannisian and the leadership of Heritage to seek justice amid the tribunes of the legal system.

In spite of incontrovertible evidence attesting to the commission of criminal acts, the multiple levels of the judicial branch have repeatedly rendered capricious rejections of the legal claim to reopen the offices. This series of unfounded judgments supports the conviction that we have come up against different links in a single chain of criminal conduct that is guided by the highest echelon of executive authority.

As for the scandalous reproduction of the “Watergate” precedent—the unlawful break-in to party headquarters and the presidential theft of information therefrom—the Armenian police department and then Yerevan’s prosecutor have refused our legitimate demand to file criminal charges, evidently in an ill-disguised attempt to cover up the crimes in question. Accordingly, as a measure of final recourse, we have petitioned—and expect a just determination from—the Republic’s prosecutor general to institute criminal proceedings and commence a full investigation by November 10, the deadline set by law.

All this is taking place against the backdrop of the administration’s recently repeated “oaths” to guarantee the absolute fairness of the parliamentary elections scheduled for Spring 2007.

Without further interpreting Heritage’s recent “experiences,” we submit that the party enters the pre-election season—which de facto has already been launched and is overflowing upon the country’s television screens—(a) locked out of its central offices, (b) with its database broken into and compromised, (c) being systematically and unlawfully deprived by relevant state bodies of the right to rent meeting space and thus to exercise the freedoms of speech and association, and (d) on a presidentially-conceived “black list” wholly forbidding access for Heritage, its founder and officials to the electronic media, which all are under strict supervision and vertical control.

We appeal to the Armenian public with these key queries for the national agenda:

• Can this constant course of illegalities and blatant violations of civil rights assume, under any circumstance, the mantle of fundamental legitimacy for the upcoming elections?
• Is it possible that the failure to launch court proceedings—or their dismissal once instituted—against individuals, both officials and others, who have committed or commissioned crimes will serve to rein in the perpetrators of thousands of instances of electoral fraud?
• Does Armenia’s leadership have, in the first place, the moral right and legal standing to speak in the name of democracy and justice?
• In the sum total of the foregoing, isn’t the prospect of the parliamentary elections already prejudiced, and its fairness breached in advance?

The Armenian nation demands answers, expects justice, and will continue its quest for liberty and the rule of law, the triumph of equal rights for all, and the achievement of an Armenia for and of the people.

October 30, 2006
Yerevan