Yerevan, 30 July--In the most egregious campaign of human rights
violations since the falsification of elections and referenda, the
ruling regime has rounded up and physically attacked hundreds of
citizens, including journalists, for exercising their constitutional
right of assembly.

Many of the late-night arrests were conducted by plain-clothes
policemen with the application of unprecedented violence.  Among those
arrested were Heritage leaders Armen Martirosyan, Hovsep Khurshudyan,
Susanna Muradyan, and Davit Sanasaryan.  Their whereabouts are
unknown.

We demand the release of all political prisoners and the resignation
of this administration, which has proved to have nothing in common
with the civilized world and much in parallel with Yanukovich and
other despotic, totalitarian regimes around the world.

Without protection of civil and human rights, both within the country
and by the international community, the opportunities for discourse
and justice will vanish, and our promising new republic will risk
spiraling unpredictably into formless chaos.

We suggest that all political forces and civil society stand together
for the purpose of establishing, in short order, a constitutional
state based on free and fair elections and a fundamental respect for
the dignity of each and every citizen.


Raffi K. Hovannisian
30 July 2016
Yerevan