Siranush Sahakyan, the woman who deals with the return of Armenian captives

“We realize that time, even minutes, can cost lives”

Famous lawyer Siranush Sahakyan’s day starts from October at 8 am and ends at 4 am. During the day, she and her colleague, lawyer Artak Zeynalyan, meet with relatives of soldiers and civilians captured during the recent Artsakh war, and study videos circulated on the Internet by the enemy, including evidence and testimonies of ill-treatment, violence, and torture of Armenian prisoners of war in applications to the European Court.

Siranush Sahakyan specializes in international human rights, which means that she can face gross violations during fact-finding activities. However, no matter how predictable and manageable the psychological complications due to the profession, there were moments when the female lawyer simply stopped watching videos and went out to breathe fresh air.

He notes with regret that prisoners of war and captives are still subjected to the same cruelty, violence, and torture as centuries ago during and after the various wars, when everything was possible to keep in secret and to avoid responsibility on that basis. She insists that the international community should not justify such inhuman treatment in any way.

During the last two and a half months, Siranush Sahakyan and Artak Zeynalyan submitted more than seven dozen applications to the ECHR for prisoners, and thirty applications were submitted by the ECHR Armenian representative. By the way, the applications submitted to the European Court are made exclusively as a result of the joint work of Zeynalyan and Sahakyan, who has not even consulted with any international partner. Experienced and trained lawyers have not sought the help of foreign partners because there are issues of trust, security, intelligence and counterintelligence, so we must be very careful not to damage matters of national and state importance.

Based on almost all the applications submitted by the Armenian lawyers to the ECHR, the European Court makes decisions on the application of immediate measures, demands answers to the conditions of detention of Armenian captives, health condition, medical examination, conclusion and other questions, and demands from Azerbaijan to set terms for returning them.  Main complaints have already been lodged with the ECHR regarding several prisoners.

Both Sahakyan and Zeynalyan are very well acquainted with the approaches of the ECHR, the thresholds of evidence, they do everything possible to present invulnerable cases with solid evidence.

Siranush was not among people welcoming 44 detainees who returned to Yerevan from Baku a few days ago, although more than half of the boys were Siranush Sahakyan and Artak Zeynalyan’s clients. They have neither the time nor the need to be publicized, almost every day materials about new prisoners of war appear on the Internet, they should be studied, substantiated and invulnerable applications should be submitted to protect the rights of as many boys as possible.

In addition, they communicate with the families of the prisoners almost every day, after completing the medical examinations they will have the opportunity to meet with their clients in calm conditions, to listen to them.

Partner lawyers will continue to take steps to return other Armenian captives held in Azerbaijan, and will continue to inform the public about steps to fully restore the rights of returned boys.

Full text in Armenian