By Vestnik Kavkaza
The death penalty was cancelled in Armenia in 2003 when it joined the Council of Europe. The death penalty was substituted for life imprisonment, but sometimes that is even worse than death. They say that life in prison with understanding that this is forever is worse than sudden pain and not-being. However, it is a mystery what the reasons for making imprisonment unbearable are – whether it is assurance that this is true atonement or fulfillment of the absurd requirements of the penitentiary system.
Recently 40 convicts sentenced to life imprisonment started an indefinite hunger strike and addressed the President of Armenia Serge Sargsyan. Their letter said that they have lost trust in the relevant authorities, as their inactivity made them take measures of last resort. The prisoners draw the President’s attention to problems which have been ignored for many years and violation of the law by the relevant authorities.
The September hunger strike is a continuation of a July strike, after which prisoners were promised that certain steps would be taken within a month. The prisoners stopped the strike, but the Ministry of Justice didn’t do anything. The prisoners sent letters this time as well, one of them even cut off his finger as a protest. It is not the first such case. A year ago prisoner Gnun Verdanyan, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in the Nubarashen Prison, protested by stitching closed his mouth, after he was forbidden from using a phone.
The incarceration conditions of life prisoners and the indifference of the authorities of the justice system have been discussed many times. Life prisoners try to draw attention to them with numerous complaints and requests, but unsuccessfully. Human rights activists think that these people are completely isolated: their connection with society and the media is broken. The only precise information about life prisoners are the names of those who die.
It is well-known that they are poorly fed and almost not treated by doctors. There are no medicines, equipment, medical staff. According to the law, the state must hospitalize seriously-ill patients. Their simultaneous incarceration and treatment is too expensive. But a representative of a group of social observers, Robert Revazyan, says that those who need surgery and treatment in a hospital don’t receive medical help and remain in prison cells.
The chairman of the group of social observers, Sergey Gabriyelyan, describes a prisoner: “His jaw is rotting. He needs emergency surgery; there is a relevant prescription from a doctor, but nothing is being done, he stays in prison. The authorities of the prison say that they have no money for the surgery.”
Prison doctors often don’t make the diagnosis which requires hospitalization of a prisoner, as they don’t want to have trouble from the authorities of the prisons. “On the other hand, the parole commission rejects the majority of requests after 2-3 minutes of discussion of a prisoner’s case. Thus, many prisoners are not motivated for reformation, as they won’t be released on parole,” Revazyan thinks.
It seems the authorities don’t know what to do with prisoners. However, there is an absurd idea. Three years ago there was information that Armenia had developed a draft on settlement of the “liberated territories” by prisoners. Yerevan means the occupied Azerbaijani territories of Nagorno-Karabakh and nearby. Supporters of the idea insist that this is a humane step – “people will be useful, rather than spend 20 years in prisons.” Experts decided that the initiative was caused by the fact that normal people wouldn’t settle in Nagorno-Karabakh, on the contrary, they were leaving Armenia, and this has led to serious migration problems.
