U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is visiting Georgia on June 5 as part of her regional trip to South Caucasus countries. In relation to that a petition addressed to the U.S. Secretary of State was transferred to the "Yerkir" Union of NGOs with a request to be delivered to the addressee and be published.

More than 1650 residents of the Armenian populated Javakhk region of Georgia signed under the appeal, where they call H. Clinton to raise the Armenian political figure and political prisoner Vahagn Chakhalyan’s acquittal and release issue during her visit to Georgia and her meetings with the Georgian authorities.

The petition with the attached signatures and the accompanying letter was submitted to the U.S. Embassy on June 2, 2012.

Below is the full English translation of the petition.

Petition in support of the Javakheti Armenian political-social and national figure, political prisoner Vahagn Chakhalyan

to be presented to the U.S. Secretary of State Mrs. Hillary Clinton

on behalf of the Javakheti people

APPEAL

During his activities, the Javakheti Armenian social, political and national figure Vahagn Chakhalyan is fighting not only for the improvement of the socio-economic conditions of the Javakheti population and for the preservation of the ethnic, cultural, linguistic, religious and educational values of the Armenian population living in Georgia but also tries to stop the process that forces Armenians to leave the region.

Because of the above mentioned activities and for having taken over 31% of the votes from the ruling party, when being presented in the composition of the opposition party in during the local self government elections in Akhalkalaki region of October 2006 with the organization "United Javakhk" headed by him, Vahagn Chakhalyan became subject to political persecutions. The "Javakhk-Info" agency, the "Youth" radio, the sport-cultural and educational sections were closed by the Georgian authorities and the edition of "Kajatun" newspaper was banned.

Vahagn Chakhalyan was arrested illegally and sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment with false accusations. The same fate was reserved for his relatives and for many party members.

Therefore, we urge You to raise the theme of Vahagn Chakhalyan’s acquittal and release during your visit to Georgia and the meetings with President Saakashvili.