January 21, 2010 - 17:03 AMT
ANC unable to find Nikol Pashinyan
The Armenian National Congress (ANC) Thursday released a statement saying that the authorities impede the process of appealing results of the recent parliamentary elections in constituency No 10.

In their statement, the activists claim that January 21 is the last day for submitting documents to RA Constitutional Court, but Nikol Pashinyan is missing hence the documents so far remain unsigned. As Pashinyan's lawyers were informed from National Security Council's detention center, the activist has been moved to Nubarashen penitentiary

ANC finds this a premeditated act aimed to prevent the opposition from lodging an appeal with RA Constitutional Court.

Winner in January 10 parliamentary elections was Ara Simonyan (National Unity) who received 7622 votes.

On January 19, 2010,  the First Instance court of Kentron and Nork Marash community of Yerevan has found Haykakan Zhamanak newspaper editor-in-chief Nikol Pashinyan guilty of organization of disorders under article 225.1 of the RA Criminal Code and sentenced him to 7 years in prison.

Armenian National Congress: Prior to the February 19, 2008 presidential elections, several co-thinkers of Armenia's first President Levon Ter-Petrosyan created a political alliance - a pan-national movement - uniting representatives of 20 political parties and initiatives. During a congress convened on May 2, 2008, Levon-ter-Petrosyan proposed the idea of creating the Armenian National Congress (ANC), a pro-opposition political force which was officially founded during an August 1, 2008 congress. ANC calls for the release of the political detainees, reinstatement of citizens' constitutional rights and extraordinary presidential elections in Armenia.