Heritage Statement on Crime at the Top

It was beginning on March 4, 2006 that, as a direct manifestation of the criminal intent of the ruling regime, the management of the Paronian State Theater had been directed to illegally lock down—and the Service for Mandatory Execution of Judicial Acts to forcibly seal off—the Heritage Party’s central headquarters. The party’s subsequent attempts to restore its rights by meticulous recourse and appeal to law enforcement and the judicial system—the police, the prosecutor’s office, and the courts—were met at all levels with unlawful rejections issued by those “tribunes of justice” at the behest of the highest echelons of power.

And in the late night of March 8, individuals yet to be identified had in clandestine fashion entered the already-locked and sealed premises and, after circumventing the main computer’s password, gained illegal entry into the party’s database. The law enforcement bodies, however, having taken note of this criminal break-in which was corroborated by their own laboratory examination but feeling no need to give any explanation whatsoever for their own criminal omissions, have refused at every instance to file criminal charges with respect to the foregoing. In so doing, they have officially covered up yet another major felony ordered by the “great above.”

Dispelling any remnant illusion of upholding the rule of law, the prosecutor general’s final decision, dated November 16 but received today November 24, refusing to launch criminal proceedings constitutes the most recent and most compelling evidence of this cover-up.

In this connection, Heritage asserts that Armenia’s pyramid of power, which is currently scrambling to reproduce itself, has created in its own image a state of base illegality in the country. Its legal institutions, specifically the judicial system and the prosecutor’s office, have been turned into an appendix for the personal use of today’s lords and so interpret and apply the law according to their whims and at their pleasure.

The Heritage Party, moreover, is being subjected to a shameful, cowardly, and comprehensive campaign of extra-legal espionage and surveillance which is fundamentally unconstitutional and in flagrant violation of all international norms. Agents and brutes of every position and rank continue to threaten the party’s members and supporters throughout the republic. This, however, surprises no one anymore, as political activists, journalists, and thousands of other citizens are openly terrorized and become the victims of physical retribution, patent persecution, and other anti-civil measures.

The present-day “commanders,” in fearful hiding themselves, are incapable of realizing that they cannot govern a country through the spread of terror and imposed servility. On the contrary, a nation and its security are built solely by way of citizens who are free, proud, and in mastery of their rights.

Under the contemporary circumstances Heritage declares that it will continue the road to democracy and rule of law until its final destination, as it is these very values that shall form the foundation of Armenia’s true tomorrow.

November 24, 2006
Yerevan