On November 20th, the Armenian National Congress and the Heritage Party, both with representatives in the March 1st Fact Finding Group, issued a public statement protesting the intervention of the President's Office regarding the location for the Group's future activities. The joint statement says that on November 14th, at the Group's first working session, Vahe Stepanyan was elected to preside over the Group's meetings and that the Office of Armenia's Human Rights Defender was selected as the Group's new work site.However the statement then notes that the President's Office intervened in the Group's activities, demanding that the all work take place within the National Assembly building. In part the joint statement reads, "Taking into account that the President's Office illegally intervened in the activities of the Group and that the Group is being forced to work in a location where the anonymity of those giving testimony cannot be insured and where witness and experts are not sheltered from outside influences, it becomes clear that under such conditions the capability of the Group to remain aloof from a host of pressures is severely diminished and thus too is the effectiveness of the Group to uncover facts surrounding the crimes of March 1st."