TRIALS (Arutyunyan, Avakyan);
BIOGRAPHY (Oganyan)
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1. The Trial of Eduard Arutyunyan
From 4 to 10 March 1980, the Armenian Supreme Court, under the chairmanship of Yeghiazaryan, heard the case of Armenian Helsinki Group member Eduard ARUTYUNYAN, arrested on 13 July 1979 (CCE 53.18). Arutyunyan [1] was charged under Article 206-1 (Armenian SSR Criminal Code = Article 190-1, RSFSR Code), The Prosecutor was Procurator Hontkaryan and the defence lawyer was Yu.D. Mkrtchyan (he also defended R. Nazaryan, CCE 51.1).
Defence attorney Mkrtchyan had taken the brief only a few days before the trial began and studied the case materials only on his arrival in court. At the beginning of the trial Arutyunyan stated that a number of articles of the Code of Criminal Procedure had been violated during the investigation.
For example, he had not once been questioned (CCE 54.22 [3]): the investigator had simply come to inform him that he had been appointed to conduct the investigation. Thus Arutyunyan did not know the basis of the indictment.
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When the Judge asked him whether he had read the indictment and whether he admitted having written the documents to which it referred, Arutyunyan replied that he had read the indictment and did not deny authorship of the letters written in his own hand.
Replying to another question, Arutyunyan stated that he had organized the Armenian Helsinki Group and done so on the basis of of the Helsinki Agreement, he had also written the Group’s programme (in the indictment in the case of R. Nazaryan it was stated that the programme was ‘produced’ by Nazaryan, CCE 51.1); Arutyunyan had then been elected Chairman of the Group (CCE 46.15 [13]).
Arutyunyan refused to reply to a question concerning his “links with Sakharov”. Sakharov was a well-known scientist and campaigner for human rights, he said, and the court was not worthy to pronounce his name.
Asked how he had sent letters abroad, Arutyunyan said he had sent them through foreign journalists. On one occasion, he got into the British Embassy: since at that time he did not know any foreign journalists.
When asked what he meant by the defence of human rights, Arutyunyan replied that in the Soviet Union it was impossible to obtain justice: complaints were forwarded to those who were being complained about. He used to help people to make complaints — first by writing to various official bodies, and then, when he became convinced that this did not help, by trying to publicize the facts. For example, in his absence he had been declared mentally ill and an invalid, and as a result he was unable to find a job for nine years, despite the fact that the Procuracy supported his efforts. He wrote a complaint about the Gevorkyan family, who were evicted from their flat by the director of the local State farm and lived out in the open for six weeks (see “Moscow Helsinki Group Document No. 103”, CCE 54.23-2).
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While Arutyunyan was quoting these examples, Sirvard Avakyan (2. “The Trial of Avakyan” below), who was present in court, shouted: “Edik, quote us as an example!” (for the past two years she has been unable to get her job back).
Arutyunyan went on to talk about bribery, food shortages, aid to underdeveloped countries, the sending of Soviet troops to Afghanistan, and elections. He said that it was pointless keeping the borders closed: ‘No one will come here, there is nothing to be afraid of on that score. And if our people do not want to live here in semistarvation, let them go wherever they want!’
Eduard Arutyunyan asked that Armenian Helsinki Group members Robert Nazaryan and Shagen Arutyunyan (trial CCE 48.6) be summoned as witnesses; the request was refused. He also asked for permission to read out in court the letters and complaints referred to in the charges against him. The Judge replied that both the court and Arutyunyan himself were familiar with them already.
Samvel Osyan, a former member of the Armenian Helsinki Group, appeared in court as a witness. He stated that he knew Arutyunyan to be a good, cultured man who strove for justice; Osyan himself had left the Group because he realized that its activities were futile.
Karine Mkrtchyan (CCE 51.1) told the court that when she was taking documents from Arutyunyan to Nazaryan, she was stopped on the way and the documents were taken from her (she had told Nazaryan’s parents that Nazaryan had promised to marry her, but he had not kept his promise, so she had taken the documents to the KGB; this action of hers is mentioned in the indictment in Nazaryan’s case, CCE 51.1).
The defence lawyer demanded the acquittal of the accused. Strange as it may seem, E. Arutyunyan’s father spoke in court as a public witness. In his final speech Arutyunyan said that he refused to ask the court for anything, since he considered it beneath his dignity. He cursed Brezhnev and the government, demanded the release of all prisoners of conscience, and said that he was happy to be on the side of human rights and that he had been imprisoned only because he had campaigned against the dirty practices of the Soviet authorities. He was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in ordinary-regime camps.
Arutyunyan was kept in the courtroom throughout the trial; even when the judges retired for a recess, he was not given a meal and his family were not permitted to give him anything to eat. Arutyunyan tried to refuse to participate in the trial until he was given something to eat, but each time he protested, the Judge said that not much remained ‘for today’ and the trial continued.
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When his family visited him after the trial, Arutyunyan asked them not to lower themselves by writing complaints on his behalf. His parents, in turn, asked their son not to write anything, at least while he was in prison. “What did he have to write about here?” was his rhetorical response. “About the fact that visits and parcels had to be bought by bribery? About the fact that people here were deprived of meals and slept on dirty mattresses left over virtually from tsarist times?” The visit was then terminated.
The head of the Armenian Administration for Corrective Labour Institutions [ACLI] told Arutyunyan’s family that he had received an order from Moscow to send Arutyunyan to the Krasnoyarsk Region: he himself was not authorized to deal with ‘politicals’. On 2 April 1980, Arutyunyan was sent off to the camps.
On 4 April, his father was informed by an ACLI official that Arutyunyan was still in Yerevan, awaiting admission to hospital.
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2. The Trial of Sirvard Avakyan (Yerevan)
On 20 March 1980, the Spandaryan district people’s court in Yerevan, under the chairmanship of Judge Goginyan, sentenced female accused Sirvard AVAKYAN [Avagyan] to one year in ordinary-regime camps under Article 222 (Armenian SSR Criminal Code: “Hooliganism”). The Prosecutor at the trial was Procurator Kamalyan.
According to the judgement (the official Russian translation is quoted here, Chronicle)
On 10 March 1980 at 10 am, the accused Avakyan was in a courtroom on the third floor of the Supreme Court building. Since she did not conduct herself properly during the trial, she was evicted from the courtroom.
Police office Danielyan cautioned her for talking loudly in the corridor and asked her to leave the building. On the ground floor, that is at the entrance to the Supreme Court, and also outside the building, Avakyan caused a disturbance and attracted the attention of a passing citizen, at which police officials also tried to bring her to order, telling her to stop making remarks and gathering people round her.
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Despite the legally justified demands of the police officials, she called them ‘dogs’ and sheepdogs and then shouted abuse directed at the representatives of authority and also at State leaders. This went on for about half an hour and a large crowd gathered.
Makyan, taking advantage of the presence of the crowd and encouraged by some responses, began to shout and curse even louder. Those present reproached the police officials for not bringing the abusive woman to order.
Police officials then took Avakyan by force to the Spandaryan internal affairs office.
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On 10 March 1979, Sirvard Avakyan and Arutyunyan’s mother were removed from the courtroom, where they had been talking. After the recess Arutyunyan’s mother returned to the courtroom for the reading of the judgment and Avakyan was taken away to a police station.
Avakyan’s friends immediately followed her.
The officer in charge of the police station assured them that no fictitious charges would be brought against Avakyan and promised to inform them that evening of the reason for her detention. In the evening, however, he told Rafael Oganyan (see 3. “Biography”, below) that Avakyan was “connected with patriots and democrats” and that the matter therefore needed careful examination.
The following day seven people handed their written testimony to Procurator Markaryan and asked him to give it to the court. On 17 March they wrote to City Procurator Vasilyan. In their testimony the witnesses stated that on the morning of 10 March, local internal affairs official Major Asryan had insulted Avakyan in unprintable language in the courtroom.
When they arrived at the police station on 11 March, Asryan was once again shouting vile abuse at Avakyan; they tried to make him feel ashamed, but he said that he was an ‘official’ and had the right to act in this way.
Oganyan went to the police station several times, trying to obtain Avakyan’s release. Major Asryan and Khachatryan, Head of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Spandaryan OVD threatened to arrest Oganyan unless he stopped his interventions. They informed him that they knew he was a democrat and connected with Arutyunyan.
In contravention of the Code of Criminal Procedure, Avakyan was not given a copy of the indictment in her case until the evening of 19 March.
On 20 March Avakyan’s friends heard only by chance about her trial. They went to the courtroom, but were not admitted to the trial, at which only a few policemen were present. Three policemen, including Asryan, and two vigilantes appeared as witnesses. The written testimony of Avakyan’s friends did not figure in the trial.
On 10 March, the day of her arrest, Avakyan had declared a hunger strike.
As she was being led out after the trial, her friends noticed there was blood on her clothes. It later came to light that she had been beaten up by Vachikh Sarkisyan, an official at the Ordzhonikidze district detention centre in Yerevan.
After the trial Avakyan was transferred from the detention centre to the city prison. In April a letter said to be from Arutyunyan was thrown into her cell. Since she knew that Arutyunyan had been taken away from the prison on 2 April, Avakyan did not pick up the letter.
A little later the duty warder came into the cell; he said that he knew about the letter for Avakyan and ordered her to give it back. Avakyan replied that ‘tomorrow’ she would give the letter to the Prison Head. Then Ararat Aivazyan, an official from the Operations Department, entered the cell. Avakyan told him to remove his provocative letter. In response, Aivazyan beat her up. After this Avakyan was put into solitary confinement. Avakyan’s parents did not find out what had happened to their daughter until 27 March.
On 4 April 1979, the Armenian SSR Supreme Court heard the appeal in Avakyan’s case. The following is taken from lawyer Vilen Manasaryan’s appeal:
“The court’s findings, as described in the verdict, are based on the tendentious and contradictory evidence of witnesses who are police officials … and of two people’s vigilantes … besides the aforementioned witnesses, not one ordinary citizen was questioned.
“As regards the evidence of those who were questioned, this … was clearly dictated by the ambition and the power over the other witnesses of witness Asryan, who … wanted to punish Avakyan because she had dared to start an argument with him …
“Witness Asryan’s ambition can be seen in the fact that he regarded Avakyan’s words, which were addressed to him and clearly provoked by his own crudeness, as insults to the Soviet State and its leaders.
“It follows from what has been said above that this is not a case of hooliganism … but of insulting remarks addressed to individual police officials.”
The Supreme Court upheld the verdict.
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On 15 April 1979, Oganyan wrote to B. Sarkisov, Chairman of the Presidium of the Armenian Supreme Soviet, describing in detail all the circumstances of Avakyan’s ‘case’.
” … the gross violation of citizen Avakyan’s rights, her illegal one-year prison sentence, the barbaric beatings and lawlessness are indicative of total arbitrariness and anarchy among the administrative, investigative and judicial organs in the Republic … Komsomol member Sirvard Avakyan has defended the interests of the Soviet state by speaking out against plunderers of socialist property, and this is why she is persecuted by enemies of the Soviet people and State …”
On 24 April 1979, Avakyan’s parents had an interview with Sarkisov. He told them that he had already learned of their daughter’s case from Oganyan’s letter and that it was clear to him that the case had been deliberately organized. The matter would be discussed in the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet and she would probably be released.
On the same day, at the prison, Avakyan’s parents were refused permission to visit her, although legally entitled to do so. Avakyan, who is continuing the hunger-strike she began on the day of her arrest, is refusing to accept parcels.
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During seven years Sirvard AVAKYAN (b. 1952) has been dismissed from her job on four occasions; on each occasion she was reinstated by a court. For about two years before her arrest, she had been unable to return to her job. At the beginning of 1980 she was offered a job as a department head in the district committee of the Komsomol.
She refused, saying that she wanted to return to her former job. She had been dismissed because she had criticized the way the factory was run (illegal lowering of wages, thieving, deception of the workers). On two occasions she was forcibly interned in a psychiatric hospital — for six weeks in Erevan and for three months in Moscow (she was detained near the American Embassy).
In October 1979, Oganyan and Avakyan were in Moscow as guests of Tatyana Osipova and Ivan Kovalyov and they had some photographs taken together. Sometime later the mutual friend who had taken the photographs sent them a few copies by post. In January Avakyan was summoned by the KGB and shown the photographs.
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BIOGRAPHY
3. Raphael Oganyan
Raphael Oganyan was born in 1925 in Kirovakan. In 1942 he went to the Front as a volunteer. He was wounded several times.
He has several State decorations, two orders and some medals, and is a Group III invalid of the Patriotic War (1941-1945). After the war Oganyan was unable to find work because of his invalid status. He lived on his pension, 150 roubles per month in ‘old’ money (i.e., 15 roubles in post-1961 money).
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In 1950 Oganyan intervened on behalf of a woman who was being insulted by police-officers. One of the policemen struck him, and Oganyan hit back. He was arrested and sentenced to six years in camps. After two-and-a-half years he was released for good behaviour and his sentence was annulled under an amnesty. After his release Oganyan tried to bring a case against the court which had sentenced him, but he did not have a copy of the judgment and the court replied that it had not tried the case.
In 1954 Oganyan went to the Virgin Lands (Kazakhstan), where he graduated from an agricultural college. In 1955 he joined the Party. In 1959 Oganyan returned to Kirovakan. From 1962 he worked as a foreman in a Kirovakan Electric Heating Station. Because he exposed the crimes and intrigues of the bosses, they began to harass him. In 1971 he was dismissed from his job because of staff cuts but was reinstated by a court. In 1974 he was again dismissed and was again reinstated by a court. After this he was issued several reprimands, which were contested by the Procuracy.
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In 1976 he was issued 14 reprimands in the course of one month and dismissed. On 3 June 1976 the Armenian Supreme Court reinstated Oganyan in his job; the court chairman, Sarkisyan, told Oganyan to return in two hours to receive the court’s decision in writing.
Two hours later Sarkisyan told Oganyan that his case would be re-examined on 9 July. On 9 July 1976, different members of the Supreme Court assembled for the hearing and Oganyan’s claim was rejected. All his petitions had no effect: to the Armenian Republican Procurator’s office, to the USSR Procurator’s office, to the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet, to the CPSU Central Committee, to Brezhnev — and to the KGB to whom he wrote that he had written several times to Brezhnev but received no reply: if his letter did not reach Brezhnev this time he would be forced to try and send it through a foreign ambassador, which would necessitate his gaining entry to an embassy.
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In 1969 Oganyan graduated by correspondence from the Mechanics Faculty of Yerevan Polytechnic Institute. In 1970 he started a correspondence course at the Law Faculty of Yerevan University. In 1975 he was expelled in his fifth year. He had, it was alleged, been “falsifying the marks in his school record”; the real reason was that he was writing numerous letters to various official bodies about bribery in the University (how marks were being awarded to students, for example, who had not even taken the examinations).
The University Party organization expelled Oganyan from the Communist Party “for making unacceptable complaints”. At a second hearing the decision was changed from expulsion to a reprimand. In 1975 he was expelled from the Party for “concealing a conviction”.
In December 1978, Oganyan gained entry to the French Embassy. He gave the consul his letter to Brezhnev (see below) and Avakyan’s statement concerning her reinstatement at work (“The Trial of Avakyan”, above). He then refused to leave until the consul delivered them to their destination. After 12 hours of talks with embassy officials, Oganyan was taken away by KGB officials who had been summoned by the Embassy. He was interned in a psychiatric hospital. A psychiatric commission pronounced him healthy and he was released 15 days later and put in the care of his family.
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On their return to Armenia, Oganyan and Avakyan [2] were summoned for an interview by Yuzbashyan, Chairman of the Armenian KGB.
Yuzbashyan said that he had been appointed to deal with their case: he had been given documents about their conflicts at work and extensive documentation concerning embezzlement, bribery and corruption among the top officials in the Republic, which had been covered up by the All-Union leadership in Moscow.
After leaving KGB headquarters, Oganyan and Avakyan went to visit Old Bolshevik A.G. Atanesyan. They were followed there by KGB officials who, with a warrant from the USSR Procurator’s Office, carried out a search and confiscated 12 letters and statements addressed to Soviet official bodies. Several months later, Atanesyan was asked to come and retrieve the confiscated documents. The matters raised in these documents, he replied, should be dealt with by the ‘organs’ and they should retain the documents.
Sometime later Yuzbashyan summoned Oganyan and Avakyan for another interview. He could not help them in any way, he said this time: it had been foolish of Oganyan to force his way into the Embassy. Their only way out lay in emigration: they should get invitations from abroad and leave Armenia. He returned the confiscated documents to Oganyan.
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4. Oganyan’s statement to Brezhnev (15 July 1978).
EXCERPTS
“All my life I have been unable to come to terms with anti-social activities which undermine the authority of our Party and our State.
“As a result of the constant struggle I’ve waged, particularly against embezzlement, bribery and red tape, I have become a thorn in the flesh of the authorities in our town and our Republic. Mutual back-scratching and strong protectionism have led to my being unjustly harassed and persecuted by the city and republican authorities. Finally, instead of thanking me, false, provocative reports were made against me; on 12 February 1976 I was dismissed for the third time from my job, where I have worked since 1962; since then, I have been without work.
“For two years and five months, my family has gone hungry. I am left without means of subsistence and I have three children of school age.
“The great leader V.I. Lenin fought against the Tsar and he was not thrown out of work: I’m fighting on behalf of Soviet regime in the USSR and my family and I are allowed to go hungry.
“I’m being persecuted for criticism. Why?
“This is a gross violation of the Basic Law (the Constitution) of the Soviet regime. It is a gross violation of the Rules of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. It is a gross violation of the rights of a Soviet citizen …
“Dear Comrade Brezhnev,
“You often mention the name of the great leader V.I. Lenin, the founder of the Soviet State, and of this I am very glad. Vladimir Ilich Lenin considered bureaucracy a political crime, yet we are not combating bureaucracy and red tape.
“It pains me that some of your trusted officials consider this question a mere formality …
“This is leading to the crumbling of all the political achievements of the Soviet regime, the crumbling of the achievements of the world’s first socialist state, and the disintegration of Lenin’s Party, for which several tens of millions of people have honourably laid down their lives. Obviously, my letters and telegrams are not getting through to you.
“I ask you to see me and hear me out, then take concrete steps against these crimes …”
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NOTES
- On Eduard Arutyunyan, see CCE 46.15 [13], CCE 48.6, CCE 54.22 [3] and Name Index.
↩︎ - Both Sirvard Avakyan and Oganyan were later arrested (cce 65.9) and sentenced, with Eduard Arutyunyan to three years in the camps (1984 trial, Vesti, 1984 9-7).
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A Chronicle of Current Events 