YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 27, NOYAN TAPAN. On February 25, the U.S. Department of State published its annual report on human rights, according to which the condition of human rights essentially worsened in 2008 in Armenia. Radio Liberty reported this. According to the report, the Armenian authorities and their representatives committed many human rights violations, especially connected with the presidential elections and suppressing the actions of protest following them. "The authorities did not permit the citizens to exercise their right to freely change the government, and the citizens were arrested and imprisoned for their civil activity. The authorities used force, sometimes with a lethal outcome, to disperse the political actions of protest. The authorities used persecutions and bureaucratic methods to intimidate their political opponents and to take revenge on them. The Police beat those being under preliminary arrest and in some cases did not provide a normal process. The National Security Service and the Police were not punished for their actions," the report read. The Department of State mentioned that the February 19 presidential elections were held in the country with considerable shortcomings, and on March 1-2 the authorities used force to disperse the dense crowd of demonstrants challenging the process and results of the elections, 10 people died in consequence of the conflicts between the demonstrants and the security forces. Report's section Political Prisoners and Convicts, in particular, read: "Nearly 100 out of 150 persons arresed in the periods preceding and following the March 1 political acts of violence were kept for rather a long time and 100 were accused of committing crimes. Some of them were accused of "seizing the power" or committing "mass disorders" having wide definitions. The authorities refute presence of political prisoners and affirm that it was the political opposition that planned the post-electoral acts of violence making an attempt to seize the power with violation of the Constitution. According to the political opposition, 59 people were imprisoned in late 2008, whom the opposition considers "political prisoners." This part of the document in detail touches upon investigation and trials on cases filed on post-electoral events. In the section Freedom of Expression and Press the Department of State recorded: "Freedom of expression and press is guaranteed by the Constitution. Nevertheless, in practice the government did not respect these rights. Cases of violence, intimidation, self-censorship to press continued during the whole year. This section in detail enumerated facts of limitation of freedom of expression and press, infringements upon journalists and media.

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