On January 19, 2010 the editor-in-chief of "Haykakan Zhamanak" daily Nikol Pashinyan was sentenced to 7 years in prison, a downright illegal court ruling by the common jurisdiction court in Yerevan's Kentron and Nork-Marash administrative districts. The charge that Pashinyan organized riots was in no way proven in the course of the trial. Moreover, it is clear the court has singled out Pashinyan for excessive punishment. Of the seven other political prisoners, opposition representatives sentenced before Pashinyan on the same charges, six were given shorter terms and later released under the general amnesty.

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