Vendors say that despite recent improvements made to the market, opened in 1996, it needs to be better managed. They point out that the site is turning into a flea market of sorts where local handmade arts and crafts are being pushed aside by cheap Armenian souvenirs produced in China or brought from the Petak department store in Yerevan for resale.
Jirayr Sefilyan, sentenced on March 20, 2018 to ten years and five months, had his sentence cut to five years and five months.
As to why the demonstrators are calling for the resignation of Garegin II and new elections to replace him, Reverend Father Armen Melkonyan from Holland, who was stripped of his duties as a parish priest, told reporters that immediate reforms are need in the Armenian Apostolic Church but that many clergymen are afraid they’d be defrocked if they raised their voices.
Sefilyan told reporters covering the trial that all political prisoners in Armenia would be freed in a matter of days, and that those unjustly convicted by the courts would also be freed in time.
Toros Sefilyan, the brother of Jirayr Sefilyan, arrived in Armenia from Lebanon eleven days ago and says that he now wants to live in Yerevan.
On May 30, Armenia’s Court of Appeals will review his case and the appeals of six others sentenced alongside Sefilyan.
While the date as to when Armenia’s Court of Appeals will review the case of Jirayr Sefilyan, sentenced on March 20 of this year to ten years and five months on charges of preparing to foment public disorder, illegal arms possession, and conspiracy to seize government buildings, is not yet known, we do know that Judge Rouzanna Barseghyan will preside and will be assisted by judges Mkhitar Papoyan and Manoushak Petrosyan.
Yesterday, I arrived in a country that was different from the Armenia that used to be. See the happiness of people, so many smiles and courage!
Parents of 23-year-old Tigran Mazmanyan, a protest activist arrested on April 17, are former freedom fighters. His mother, Arpineh Harutyunyan, and father, Mher Mazmanyan, participated in the Artsakh War.
Police are now detaining protesters near Brusov University and are taking them to the Erebuni Police Station where they will be processed for administrative code violations. Twenty-two citizens, one a minor, were taken to the station.
Karo Ghukasyan, one of the 33, told Hetq by phone that they were being kept like “captives”.
"Colonizers do their best to make people leave Armenia and economically weaken our country. But no one will hand our independence to us – we should liberate our homeland and our people."
Many people who wished to enter the court as spectators never made it inside. Court officers demanded that people produce identity papers so that they could see if their names appeared on a list of banned individuals the court had drawn up.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) made 12 judgments v. Armenia in 2017, in 11 of which there’s at least one violation of the Convention.
Poghosyan also mockingly congratulated Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, given that those Armenian freedom fighters who had “spread fear and terror” for Azerbaijan were now being held in Armenian jails.
Sefilyan and the six other defendants have been charged with illegally purchasing arms, ostensibly to be used to seize government buildings. The charges were brought last year, and many believe the entire case is politically motivated; that the government merely wants to silence this vocal group of political opponents of the regime.
54-year-old Armen Khaloyan, who got out of jail last year, hasn’t been able to find work and expects to live on the streets of Yerevan this winter.
At today’s trial session, he told the court he wasn’t feeling well, and his attorney Arayik Papikyan asked for a postponement. Judge Tatevik Grigoryan refused, saying that all the defendants are examined beforehand and the court is notified if anything’s wrong.
On that day, a small group of demonstrators led by Shant Harutyunyan set off fireworks and made their way from Liberty Square to the Presidential Palace before being stopped by police.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), on September 14, issued a decision in favor of Alik Matevosyan, a former soldier serving in the Armenian army, who had been indicted of murdering another soldier, and imprisoned.
The ongoing trial, in Yerevan, of Jirayr Sefilyan and six others charged in 2016 with illegal arms purchase and possession and with conspiracy to seize government buildings in Yerevan remains a scene of contention both inside the court and outside.
The trial of Jirayr Sefilyan and six others charged in 2016 with illegal arms purchase and possession and with conspiracy to seize government buildings in Yerevan is going nowhere fast.
Jirayr Sefilyan and co-defendant Nerses Poghosyan, charged with fomenting public disorder and possession of illegal weapons, failed to heed the bailiff’s demand to rise as Judge Tatevik Grigoryan entered a Yerevan court in the latest round of their court case.
There are 4,993 people serving jail time in Armenia’s twelve penitentiaries as of May 1, 2017, this according to the country’s Department of Corrections.
Georgian citizen Nona Toloriana has telephoned Hetq, concerned about the health of her brother Zviad Toloriani who’s been imprisoned in Armenia’s Nubarashen Penitentiary since November 2015 after being convicted for attempted robbery.
19-year-old Artur Melikyan, who’s serving a nearly four-year sentence for embezzlement at Armenia’s Armavir Penitentiary, swallowed three small spoons on May 24, ostensibly to get prison officials to transfer him to another facility.
Armen Lamparyan hasn’t see his mother for ten months. Officials had banned any visits by relatives. The ban was recently lifted, and it was expected that Lamparyan’s mother would be admitted to the convicts’ hospital where her son is awaiting trial.
Zarouhie Postanjyan from the YerkirTzirani party said that the right of people criminally charged to a public court proceeding was being violated.
The Arzumanyan family of Yerevan has been fighting for their property rights for 12 years. Despite their legal struggle, they now face eviction.
The lawyers say that Hrachya Gevorgyan’s case isn’t unique for Armenia. There are many sick inmates languishing in Armenia’s jails and prisons.
According to the country’s penal law, prisoners who fall ill while incarcerated are eligible for conditional release if their medical condition is such that cannot continue to serve their sentence normally.
Tigran Yegoryan, attorney for the family of Artur Sargsyan (the ‘bringer of bread’) says he has asked that the autopsy of Sargsyan, who died in a Yerevan hospital on March 16, be delayed a few days so that independent outside specialists can take part.
Artur Sargsyan, nicknamed the “bringer of bread” for taking food to members of the armed Sasna Dzrer group who seized a Yerevan police building last July, died today while being treated at the Armenia Medical Center.
Sargsyan, listed in serious condition, was operated on last night after suddenly feeling ill. He had been released from the medical center a few days ago.
Minutes ago, Souren Makaryan, who heads the intensive care unit at Yerevan’s Armenia Medical Center, told Hetq that Artur Sargsyan has been transferred from the unit to a general ward since his condition has considerably improved.
Gyurjyan says Sargsyan wants to publicly thank all those who have demonstrated calling for his release form pretrial detention.
Artur Sargsyan, the man who ferried food to members of the armed Sasna Dzrer group holed up in a Yerevan police station after having seized it last July, is now into his twentieth day of a hunger strike at the Convicts’ Hospital.
A protest march took place in Yerevan last night calling for the release of Artur Sargsyan from pretrial detention.
Sargsyan, arrested on February 9, allegedly for not showing up after being summoned to a case hearing, has been on hunger strike for the past two weeks.
Arsen Sargsyan, the brother of Artur Sargsyan, who was arrested last August for taking food to members of the armed Sasna Dzrer group holed up in a Yerevan police station after seizing it last July, has been reported as missing for the last two days by his mother.
Artur Sargsyan, arrested yesterday for not showing up after being summoned to a case hearing, has gone on hunger strike at the Convicts’ Hospital.
Artur Sargsyan, who was arrested last August and released in December for taking food to members of the armed Sasna Dzrer group holed up in a Yerevan police station after seizing it in July, has been detained and taken to the office of the Special Investigative Service (SIS).
Vahagn Maroukyan was imprisoned in 1993, at the age of 19, after being sentenced to death for the premeditated murder of the then military police chief in the town of Vanadzor. In 2003 the sentence was commuted to life by the president of Armenia.
A Yerevan judge today extended the pre-trial detention of Garo Yegnukian, a member of the opposition Founding Parliament who has already spent two months in detention on charges of aiding and abetting in the July seizure of a Yerevan police station and the taking of hostages, by another two months.A Yerevan judge today extended the pre-trial detention of Garo Yegnukian, a member of the opposition Founding Parliament who has already spent two...
Every year, the Center dedicates its activities to a prominent Armenian cultural figure. This year it was the turn of the 18th century Armenian poet, musician and ashough Sayat Nova.
Arsen, Artur Sargsyan’s brother, says some 70 pieces have already been sold. The money was supposed to go towards paying Artur’s bail, but a court denied bail, keeping Artur in pre-trial detention.
While Melkonian was dismissed as a visiting parish priest for the small but growing Armenian community in Maastricht, he hasn’t been defrocked because he is a member of the Cilician See brotherhood.
Armenia’s Court of Appeals today rejected a petition to release Artur Sargsyan, charged with aiding and abetting the Sasna Dzrer group that seized a Yerevan police building on July 17, from pre-trial detention. Sargsyan, on July 26 managed to get through a police cordon and deliver food to the armed group members holed up in the police building.
An Armenian Apostolic clergyman, who has been dismissed as an Etchmiadzin parish priest in the Dutch city of Maastricht for speaking at demonstration outside the Armenian Embassy in Amsterdam in solidarity with the SasnaDzrer armed group that seized a Yerevan police building in July, has now issued a video-appeal calling on judges not to “sell their conscience” and to find the jailed members of the group not guilty.
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