HY RU EN
Asset 3

Loading

End of content No more pages to load

Your search did not match any articles

Ararat Davtyan

Life-Term Prisoners Go on Hunger Strike again

Arman Iskandaryan and Haroutyun Khachatryan, life-term prisoners of Nubarashen Correctional Institution, go on a hunger strike for already five days. Moreover, the latter had even sewed up his lips to show that he is deprived of any right to speak out.

“We are not only deprived of any right to speak, we are deprived of everything. They don’t give a damn about us,” Haroutyun Khachatryan said. He said that for many years he had kept writing letters to the authorities and to various instances, but the officials of the prison take his letters form him and do not send them to the addressees.

“It’s already five years that I am in this prison. The policemen beat me up, blackmailed, deprived me of a lawyer and without any explanation made me accept the responsibility of a murder I didn’t commit. They sentenced me. I turned to the Court of Appeal, but Koryun Piloyan, the same prosecutor who was alleging me at the court, ordered the convoy guards kick me and beat me up with the their submachine guns and electric shocks.  I barely have few teeth in my mouth. They have broken all of my upper teeth. I constantly suffer from acute headaches. My ears buzz all the time. They forced me to write an application and to call back my appeal to the Appeal Court, as they threatened to kill me by severe beating,” he said.

“They brought me to the Nubarashen colony all beaten and in torn clothes. But nobody drew a report on my condition. I have written many letters to our high ranking officials, but they wouldn’t send my letters. In 2005 the officials of this prison began beating me up for constantly writing letters. They kept telling me to shut up and get accustomed to the conditions.

I had to sew up my eyes and mouth for 16 times. I have even swallowed an iron mug handle, but neither a doctor visited me nor I was taken to the doctor. Till now I have no idea whether that piece of iron is still in my body or not. I have cut my throat, my hands and my stomach for several times because of the pressure they were exerting on me. I have gone on hunger strike for about 20 times. They would still leave me in the same cell with people who were eating in front of my eyes. Last year, they kept me in that condition for 10 days,” Haroutyun Khachatryan told Hetq.

He stated that even if they don’t beat and torture him in the prison at present, they still exert psychological pressure on him. “I write application, but they don’t show me the receipts of the sent letters, so that I can be sure that they send my letters. I wrote my last letter to the President on March 24. They again did not send that. The policemen entered our cell, began ransacking and trampling down my clothes. I told them if they want to ransack my things, they should do it in a proper manner. They told me I get what I deserve.

I had to go on another hunger strike and sew my mouth on March 31.  They told me they have sent my letter and showed me the receipt. I removed the stitches but I won’t stop the hunger strike until the journalists, the officials of relevant instances visit us and see how they torture us. We have lots of thing to tell about,” Haroutyun Khachatryan.
Another life-term prisoner on hunger strike Armen Iskandaryan demands that they take him to “The Hostipal for Convicts” Crminal Executional Institution.

“I have been serving in Nagorno Karabagh in 1994-96. I was wounded during a fire exchange with Azeries in December of 1996. I am a second grade disabled. The grenade launcher hit my left leg and they cut that from below my knee.

I am in the Nubarashen Colony for a murder for already eight years. In 2004 the cut part of my leg became inflamed and swelled. I turned to them for several times and they switched on systems here, but it didn’t help. They had to take me to “The Hospital for Convicts,” where they again cut my leg 3 centimeters above. Samvel Hovhannisyan was the head of the Criminal Executive Department then. He visited me and told that I will be transferred to Noubarashen only after they make a new ammunition leg for me. But I was taken back to the prison even before my wounds were healed.

The man who made my ammunition leg worked in the prison’s conditions. According to him, that’s why it is not exact and doesn’t match my leg. My ammunition leg is not comfortable. I have to remove and wear that again for several times a day, so that I can move somehow.

I ask them to take me to the hospital. They tell me in response not to wear the ammunition leg for about 20 days, until the wounds are healed. It’s merely impossible to move in the cell with a walking stick. I have to turn for help to my fellow convicts. How long can I survive by depending on them all the time, I wonder?

Last year I had to go on a hunger strike. They were supposed to transfer me to hospital but again they didn’t. They’re arguing that I deliberately mutilate my own leg. Go ahead and ask all of my co-prisoners – am I nuts to torture myself on purpose.

At the moment my foot is in a horrible condition again, it’s swollen and wounded. That’s why I’m on a hunger strike. The benefit is that I don’t move a lot and there’s no more need to go to the restroom. Prosthetics tell me that unless my leg is completely cured I can’t wear an artificial leg. All I want is to be hospitalized, my leg to be normally treated under more or less bearable conditions and then to be transferred back to jail. I know they’ll take me to the hospital when it will be too late already, and they’ll have to amputate a decent chunk of what’s left of my leg,” said Arman Iskandarian. His wife says that for years she had been writing letters to the President, Prime Minister, as well as the Ministers of Defense, Healthcare and Justice. However, these letters either remained unanswered or got transferred to the Correctional Department, which told my husband not to wear the ammunition leg for a few days, until it recovers.

“Well, it won’t work that way. Once he refused to wear his artificial leg so he can use it during the three-day visitation: he didn’t want the kid to see him with a missing leg. But the consequences were as usual, the leg got swollen, began bleeding, and he was having yet another nervous breakdown,” says Emma Mkrtchian.

She said she had tried a few days ago to talk to Ashot Giziryan, the press secretary of the Correctional Department. “But the secretary refused to transfer the call. She said that the chief ought not to be bothered with issues related to convicts,” Emma Mkrtchian said.

For two days now, Hetq’s attempts to get in touch with Arsen Babayan, the press secretary of the Correctional Department, but his phone is disconnected. Since last year we’ve been sending letters to the Minister of Justice asking them to let us meet with the two convicts, including Harutiun Khachatrian. In a letter sent just ten days ago, we had added Arman Iskandarian’s name. We haven’t received an answer to recent letter yet, but the previous ones had been declined for various excuses.

Translated by Anoush Mkrtchyan

Write a comment

If you found a typo you can notify us by selecting the text area and pressing CTRL+Enter