Dear Madam Secretary,

 We the undersigned want to express our support and appreciation for your personal involvement and efforts aimed at finding a just and peaceful resolution to the Nagorno-Kharabagh conflict, as well as achieving normalization in the relations between Armenia and Turkey. We hope and believe that your recent visit to the region will give new impetus to the resolution of these two issues critical to Armenia and the region. We think, however, that your visit to Armenia was a lost opportunity to demonstrate the commitment of the United States to democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. These are principles, which you reasserted during some parts of your recent trip, but not in Armenia.

 The omission of any public discussion regarding these matters is not easily explained away considering the most recent Human Rights Report on Armenia by the US State Department, which you head. The picture painted in that report is far from flattering. It is a picture of a country, where the current authorities assumed power by falsifying the elections then cracking down on protesters who refused to accept its results through peaceful demonstrations; a country where law-enforcement agencies and courts have become instruments of political score settling and repression; where there are more than a dozen individuals in prison for purely political reasons; where the authorities have failed to conduct a credible investigation of the killings of 10 citizens during the aforementioned protests; and where ordinary citizens rights are being violated on a less dramatic scale on a daily basis. Despite all this, you chose to express only the mildest disapproval of only the recent amendments to the Law on Broadcasting, which further threaten free speech, hastening to add that President Sargsyan has promised to encourage the Armenian National Assembly to return to the issue in the Fall.

 Your decision to relegate the crisis of democracy and human rights in Armenia to a secondary status has already done significant harm to the cause of restoring respect for human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. But it is still possible to compensate for the lost opportunity in Yerevan. It is never too late to let the Armenian authorities know that their flexibility on foreign policy issues does nothing to offset their abysmal domestic record. Most urgently, the authorities in Armenia should be informed that they cannot count on America’s friendship for much longer if they do not immediately release the political prisoners. Otherwise, we will become complicit in the crimes of a regime that treats its own people as an adversary. We believe that standing with such a regime is at variance with America’s core principles. We also believe that trading democracy and human rights off in exchange for Armenian authorities’ flexibility in foreign policy is short-sighted, because democracy and popular legitimacy are necessary conditions for the durability and stability of any agreements that Armenia will reach with Azerbaijan and Turkey. Popular legitimacy is absolutely essential if a government is to promote controversial policies, which the normalization with Turkey and an agreement with Azerbaijan are bound to be for any government in Armenia.

The Armenian translation of the petition has been made available at: https://docs.google.com/document/edit?id=1cnpGdtoGDZlI_EdcMBGFI9RyBLmWFLvvuoBET1zJXXU&hl=en&pli=1#