PACE’s defined term of “political prisoner” will not have any legal consequence in Armenia, said lawyer Artak Zeynalyan in the conversation with “First Armenian News and Anlyses”.
Artak Zeynalyan reminded that the term of “political prisoner” international human rights organizations defined long ago, and the PACE repeated that. Human rights defender said that all those who were called political prisoners, they will continue to be called the same way and their status will not change.
“People who received the status of political prisoners as a result of the recent developments will remain as such. It is good that PACE has approved this definition, but it will not have legal consequences in Armenia. In Armenia, there are very rare cases of political prisoners that are sentenced for violation of the right of peaceful assembly or for violation of freedom of speech. People are not sentenced for violations of these rights in Armenia ere whiles.” commented Mr. Zeynalyan, adding that the political prisoners are those, who the community perceives as a political prisoner, and the power are those, who are jailed for money laundering.
Recall that PACE defined the word-combination “political prisoner”, saying that they are people who are deprived of personal liberty, if imprisonment is imposed in case of violation of the basic rights set in the European Convention on Human Rights.
