HE Robert Kocharyan
President ofArmenia

Via facsimile +374-1-588 756

18 March 2003

Dear Mr. President,

On 15 March 2003, Mr. Artur Sakunts, coordinator of the Helsinki Citizens Assembly (hCa), Vanadzor Office, and editor of the newspaper ‘Civil Initiative’, was arrested, immediately tried in a closed session and sentenced to ten days detention on charges of disobeying the authorities (Article 182 of the Armenian Administrative Code).

He had attempted to organize a public meeting on this day in order to inform the population about the finding his organization has made in their election monitoring of the Armenian Presidential elections on 19 February and 5 March 2003.

The day before, early in the morning of 14 March, unidentified individuals broke into and firebombed the office of hCa in Vanadzor, destroying parts of the office´s equipment.

We appeal to the Armenian authorities:

• to make an immediate and impartial investigation into the firebombing of the hCa office in Vanadzor, and to bring those responsible to justice;
• to immediately release Mr. Sakunts, as he only made use of his constitutionally guaranteed rights of freedom of expression and peaceful assembly;
• to end the intimidation of all those, who are critical about the mass irregularities during both elections, like ballot box stuffing and other election fraud, arrests, intimidation, absence or expulsion of opposition proxies, unfair gross preferential treatment of the president in government controlled mass media; pressure on heads, subordinates and beneficiaries of various institutions in favor of the president; and the detention and administrative punishment of dozens of peaceful protesters; and
• to conduct a full and transparent investigation of election irregularities, accountability for those responsible, and other steps to restore public confidence.

We appreciate your attention to our concerns.

Yours sincerely,

Aaron Rhodes
Executive Director