Armenia: court extends custody of oppositional editor

The court of general jurisdiction of the Yerevan community Tsentr-Nork-Marash has passed a decision to extend by two month the pre-trial custody of Nikol Pashinyan, editor-in-chief of the oppositional newspaper "Aikakan Zhamanak" and activist of the "Armenian National Congress" who voluntarily surrendered to law enforcers on July 1.

Mr Pashinyan is charged of organizing mass disorders, violating the legitimate order of holding mass actions and use of violence against a power official. These charges entail from 4 to 10 years of imprisonment.

Earlier, Tigran Atanesyan, his advocate, explained journalists that as "use of violence against a power official" the investigatory body means the incident on October 23, 2007, when during notification of Yerevan residents about an opposition rally a clash burst out between the activists of the opposition, Nikol Pashinyan among them, with policemen, who interfered with the participants of the march.

Let us note here that recently Pashinyan was deprived of the opportunity to read the press. Nelson Zakaryan, the boss of the criminally-corrective establishment, where the journalist is kept, took offence on Pashinyan for his publication, in which he named Zakaryan's education defective, and has decided to forbid Pashinyan reading the press. When the advocate told Nelson Zakaryan that such actions are forbidden by the law, the boss of the facility answered that it was done according to the internal regulations.