The World - News from June 2, 1989

Eleven Armenian activists, jailed since December, were freed after months of demonstrations demanding their release, a source in Yerevan, the capital of Soviet Armenia, said. Ashot Aslibegyan, head of an unofficial youth group, said 10 members of the Karabakh Committee along with one former member appeared before a cheering crowd in Yerevan. The activists had campaigned for annexation of Nagorno-Karabakh, a predominantly Armenian region in the neighboring Soviet republic of Azerbaijan. Aslibegyan said he believes the release was a public relations ploy by Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev timed to coincide with the meeting in Moscow of the new Soviet congress.