(The following is part of a telephone conversation between DA, a graduate of the Nubarashen Special School, and Arman Gharibyan, one of the volunteers who worked there.) - But when they call me to testify, I’ll lie. - Why DA? Why will you lie? - Don’t know. I’m scared. - Has something happened? Why will you have to lie? - I don’t know. But when they call me, I’ll lie…Everyone knows my name now. They recognize me and come up to ask questions. I got into a fight with my friend cause of this. I won’t talk. - Yeah, but they all know you already. You got to risk it and tell the truth. - No…I can’t do it. - So let me get this straight. Are you gonna say that we told you what to say? - I don’t know. But I won’t tell them what happened. - In other words, you’re gonna lie in court. - Yep. - When they ask why you’ve changed your story, what will you answer? - Umm…I’ll say-I’m sorry but I lied cause I don’t like Mr. Avagyan. He tells me to get to bed early. Mariam Sukhudyan, a 29 year-old member of the Teghut Defense Group, has been charged with “slander”. During the months of April-June of 2008, Mariam Sukhudyan and a few other volunteers, worked under the auspices of the United Nations financed “10 Best Schools” project carried out at the #11 Nubarashen Special Needs School. There they uncovered evidence that certain members of the school staff had engaged in sexual abuse of the kids, physical violence and forced labor. They handed over their findings to various media outlets. On November 13, 2008, Armenian Public T.V. aired a recorded interview with D.A., a pupil at the school, regarding sexual abuse carried out by the Armenian language and literature teacher. Ten days later, a second interview was broadcast featuring school graduate H.S. The girl spoke of similar abuse she was subjected to at the hands of the same teacher. On the basis of this reportage, the Erebuni Investigative Unit started to prepare a case. The teacher in question subsequently filed a complaint stating that he had been slandered. On February 11, 2009, the Police Department’s Erebuni Investigative Unit opened a criminal case of slander based on the statements of the school pupil D.A. During a videotaped interview, D.A. recanted her earlier claims and told police that Mariam had convinced her to say such things. Six months later, Mariam Sukhudyan was charged with “false denunciation” for personal gain. On October 10, the charge was changed to “slander” under Article 135 of the RoA Criminal Code. Pupil D.A. had talked about abuses at the school in front of the video camera. Mariam and her volunteer friends, as well as “Hetq” reporter Lena Nazaryan, were present at the taping and certified the same during their testimony. During her conversation with Arman Gharibyan, D.A. attested to the fact that an individual from the school showed up at their house and spoke to her mother and that she was later forced to offer testimony that contradicted the acts. The girl said that friends and family members had seen her on T.V. and that she had become a target of ridicule. This telephone conversation was handed over to the police investigative unit. In the laser disc recording of the conversation prepared by the investigator the segment where D.A. states that she will have to lie as to the facts was conveniently left out. Furthermore, the investigator threw out the original phone recording as admissible evidence. The second video tape broadcast by “Haylur” also met with no response by law enforcement despite the fact that four other school graduates also spoke about similar incidents of abuse and stuck by their claims during a face-to-face meeting with the teacher and school principal. “However, the investigator found the above testimonies to be non-credible, reasoning that the school pupils are not able to perceive and reconstruct the facts since no psychological or psychiatric examination of any of the students in question, as stipulated by the law, was ever conducted,” stated Nona Galstyan, Mariam Sukhudyan’s lawyer. The lawyer added that Mariam Sukhudyan was charged based on the testimony of only one of the school’s pupils, the girl D.A. and that, despite the contradictions in her testimony, she was never personally interrogated. Then too, there is the fact that D.A.’s statements directly contradict the claims of others involved in the case as well as the taped recordings. The school’s teacher staff and principal rejected out of hand any allegations of impropriety at the school. “Their realm of imagination is quite extensive. Perhaps, it is possible that they just dreamt the stuff up, without deceiving. Not even the most imaginative of authors could have written such a book,” stated school principal Meruzhan Yengibaryan in an interview with “Haylur”. The charges against Mariam Sukhudyan appear to be solely based on the interpretation that she singled out pupil D.A, and directed her to make the claims she did solely for personal gain. For what gain? Again, the supposition is that Sukhudyan was irate that the school principal refused to allocate the 1 million AMD United Nation’s grant to them all at once, but decided to hand over the money in installments. “We had to purchase school books and we needed some of the money. We had a discussion with the principal and his reply was, ‘No, how can I be sure what will happen”. There was no problem and we entered into an agreement with the United Nations. We paid for the items out of our own pockets, collected the receipts, and later were reimbursed by the school,” Mariam recounts. “From the start, even before a criminal case had been launched, we were called down to the police station. They pulled me aside and kept me there for seven hours. The investigator told me, “Don’t make out that you’re some kind of prophet. Know that the entire matter is on your shoulders and that you were the one giving directives’. In other words the die was cast against me from the get-go. Then the psychological pressure became more evident and I could imagine what the outcome would be,” Mariam continues. Today, the pupil known as D.A. is no longer in Armenia and her whereabouts remain a secret. The Armenian language and literature teacher alleged to have abused the pupils no longer works at the special needs school, He had tendered his resignation. The pre-trial examination of the criminal case has been completed. Mariam Sukhudyan has signed an affidavit certifying that she will not leave the city before the trial begins. “After the second charge was filed, they suggested that I declare my guilt and thus be granted amnesty. The investigator told me that the charge fell under the amnesty provisions and that if I only confessed the charges would be dropped. I told them I wouldn’t agree to such terms and that we demanded to know who the actual law-breakers were,” Mariam says. Presently Mariam Sukhudyan’s lawyer has filed several motions with the court. On November 6, the volunteers who had worked at the school sent a letter to the chief prosecutor pointing out the illegalities and inaccuracies in the investigatory unit’s actions to date. They demanded that all criminal charges against Mariam be dropped immediately.