Rights defenders accuse Armenian authorities of ignoring problems of life prisoners

The Armenian authorities have been slow to make decisions on issues of rehabilitation of persons sentenced to life imprisonment, and the power demonstrates the lack of political will to change anything. This was stated by participants of the discussion on life sentence held in Yerevan on October 20.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on October 12-16, in Armenia, persons sentenced to life imprisonment held a mass hunger strike with the demand to review their criminal cases. The hunger strike was suspended due to the fact that the prisoners sent a letter to the presidential administration.

The Armenian authorities should develop a draft law on the return of a person sentenced to life imprisonment to society. This was stated by Zarui Medjlumyan, Chair of the "Armenian Innocence Project". According to her, the prisoners should be assured that after a certain period of time, the justice system will allow them to hope for conditional early relief or change of the sentence regime.

Robert Revazyan, a lawyer to the Helsinki Committee of Armenia, agrees that the power primarily needs political will to review such cases.

According to Robert Revazyan, the authorities are afraid to reconsider the cases, since in the course of the reconsideration it may be revealed that a life sentence was the result of a miscarriage of justice. He sees one more problem in the lack of a team of psychologists, who should work with persons sentenced to life imprisonment to prepare them for their possible return to society.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.