About 50 opposition supporters rallied in Yerevan on Monday to demand the immediate release of Arman Babajanian, a jailed newspaper editor reportedly suffering from serious health problems.
Babajanian, who founded and ran the pro-opposition newspaper “Zhamanak,” was arrested in June 2006 and subsequently sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison for forging documents to evade compulsory military service. Throughout his imprisonment he has frequently complained about his health condition and been treated in a prison hospital.
Babajanian, whose prison sentence ends on September 16, was again hospitalized last month. Doctors reportedly found a tumor in his brain during a medical examination.
Friends and supporters say he is in urgent need of treatment at a civilian hospital and should therefore be released from prison as soon as possible. The Armenian authorities have refused to set him free, however.
“His condition is worsening day by day, and his vision has disappeared by 40 percent,” said Karen Karapetian, the leader of a youth wing of the opposition Armenian National Congress (HAK) who organized the protest.
The small crowd gathered outside the HAK headquarters and marched to a public park elsewhere in the city center, chanting “Freedom! Freedom!” Some of the protesters carried Babajanian’s pictures.
According to Karapetian, the authorities have made clear that they will free the young editor only if he asks President Serzh Sarkisian for an individual pardon. Babajanian has refused to do that, he said.
Speaking to RFE/RL by phone later in the day, Babajanian said he has only agreed to authorize the prison hospital administration to appeal to a special government commission empowered to release convicts on parole. The commission has repeatedly refused to grant him parole in the past.
Arsen Babayan, a spokesman for a Justice Ministry department managing Armenia’s prisons, said the “Zhamanak” editor told the hospital administration last month not to lodge yet another petition with the commission. “Today Arman Babajanian renounced his previous appeal and asked for the consideration of his early release,” he said.
Babajanian, whose prison sentence ends on September 16, was again hospitalized last month. Doctors reportedly found a tumor in his brain during a medical examination.
Friends and supporters say he is in urgent need of treatment at a civilian hospital and should therefore be released from prison as soon as possible. The Armenian authorities have refused to set him free, however.
“His condition is worsening day by day, and his vision has disappeared by 40 percent,” said Karen Karapetian, the leader of a youth wing of the opposition Armenian National Congress (HAK) who organized the protest.
The small crowd gathered outside the HAK headquarters and marched to a public park elsewhere in the city center, chanting “Freedom! Freedom!” Some of the protesters carried Babajanian’s pictures.
According to Karapetian, the authorities have made clear that they will free the young editor only if he asks President Serzh Sarkisian for an individual pardon. Babajanian has refused to do that, he said.
Speaking to RFE/RL by phone later in the day, Babajanian said he has only agreed to authorize the prison hospital administration to appeal to a special government commission empowered to release convicts on parole. The commission has repeatedly refused to grant him parole in the past.
Arsen Babayan, a spokesman for a Justice Ministry department managing Armenia’s prisons, said the “Zhamanak” editor told the hospital administration last month not to lodge yet another petition with the commission. “Today Arman Babajanian renounced his previous appeal and asked for the consideration of his early release,” he said.