Armenia: Council of Europe Reprieve

Yesterday’s meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) gave Armenia one last chance to avoid sanctions following last year’s clashes between opposition supporters and security forces in the aftermath of a bitterly contested presidential election. The disorder claimed at least ten lives and dozens of opposition activists were rounded up during the state of emergency that followed.

Armenian bloggers naturally reacted to the news, but most were unhappy with the PACE decision. On Monday, for example, pro-opposition blogs such as tzitzernak2 already sensed that Yerevan would be granted a reprieve when the president announced an amnesty for 16 people charged during the post-election riot.

[…] Talk about really trying to pull one over. If the PACE folks buy the release of these 16 as a release of political prisoners and significant movement towards the principles set forth in their own documents, well then they’ve compromised not only their principles, but they’ve been duped, chumped, sucker-punched, bamboozled, hoodwinked, and hornswoggled.

And maybe they want it that way, which is just a whole new level of immorality.

Another pro-opposition blog, Nazarian, agreed.

There is no doubt that the Europeans are going to claim this as a gesture of goodwill by the Armenian regime. All they need is a light excuse to maintain their current approach. As long as Serj doesn’t eat little babies for lunch, the Europeans are not going to bother with Armenia’s problems. […]

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