Friday, August 16, 2019
Red Cross Seeking Access To Armenian POW In Azerbaijan
August 16, 2019
• Artak Khulian
Switzerland -- Peter Maurer, President of the International Committee of the
Red Cross (ICRC), at a news conference in Geneva, 07Sep2012
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Friday that its
representatives are trying to visit an Armenian soldier who was taken prisoner
by Azerbaijani forces near Nagorno-Karabakh this week.
The 19-year-old conscript, Arayik Ghazarian, was detained on Monday after
crossing the Armenian-Azerbaijani “line of contact” around Karabakh in still
unclear circumstances.
The Azerbaijani military said Ghazarian claimed to have deserted his unit
because of being systematically mistreated by his comrades. Armenia’s Defense
Minister Davit Tonoyan denied that, saying that that the soldier probably
strayed into Azerbaijani-controlled territory by accident.
Armenia’s Investigative Committee launched a criminal inquiry into both
desertion and hazing in connection with the incident. No servicemen of
Ghazarian’s unit have been charged or detained so far, according to the
law-enforcement body
The Armenian side also asked the ICRC to help free and repatriate Ghazarian.
The ICRC responded by requesting permission to visit the Armenian prisoner of
war in custody.
A spokeswoman for the IRCR office in Yerevan Zara Amatuni, said the Red Cross
has not yet been granted access to him. “ICRC representatives’ dialogue with
representatives of relevant authorities with regard to visiting that person is
continuing at the moment,” she told RFE/RL’s Armenian. “The process is still in
progress.”
The Turan news agency reported that Azerbaijan’s human rights ombudsman has met
with Ghazarian and that the latter did not complain about his detention
conditions or treatment by Azerbaijani authorities.
Kocharian’s Trial ‘Not Obstructed By Judicial Authorities’
August 16, 2019
• Naira Nalbandian
Armenia -- Former President Robert Kocharian speaks during his trial in
Yerevan, May 16, 2019.
A senior judicial official insisted on Friday that the Armenian authorities are
not deliberately dragging out the stalled trial of former President Robert
Kocharian to prevent his release from jail.
The trial began on May 13, with Kocharian facing accusations of bribery and a
violent overthrow of the constitutional order strongly denied by him. A few
days later, a Yerevan district court judge presiding over it, Davit Grigorian,
ordered the ex-president freed from custody and suspended court hearings on the
case, questioning the legality of the charges.
Prosecutors appealed against both decisions strongly condemned by political
allies and supporters of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian. Armenia’s Court of
Appeals overturned them on June 25, leading Kocharian’s lawyers to appeal to
the higher Court of Cassation.
Grigorian was charged with forgery and suspended in late July. Lawyers for the
judge suggested that the charge was brought against him in retaliation against
his handling of the Kocharian case.
The high-profile trial, which must now be held by another judge, has still not
resumed. Kocharian’s lawyers claim that the authorities are “artificially”
delaying it as part of their efforts to keep the ex-president under arrest as
long as possible.
The head of Armenia’s Judicial Department, Karen Poladian, dismissed those
claims. “Many people accuse the judicial system,” he told reporters. “I think
that they do so for certain purposes.”
Poladian argued that Kocharian’s legal team itself sent the case to the Court
of Cassation. “Until the of Court Cassation hands down a final ruling the court
of first instance cannot hold hearings on the case,” he told reporters.
Poladian said the Court of Cassation will send next week a copy of the case
back to the Yerevan court so that it can be assigned to another judge. The
latter will then decide when the trial can resume, added the official.
One of Kocharian’s lawyers, Aram Orbelian, insisted, however, that the trial
should have resumed shortly after the Court of Appeals ruling that led to his
client’s renewed arrest. “The court of first instance has no legal grounds to
refrain from holding hearings on the case,” Orbelian told RFE/RL’s Armenian
service.
The coup charges, which have also been leveled against two retired army
generals, stem from the 2008 post-election violence in Yerevan which left eight
anti-government protesters and two police servicemen dead. Prosecutors claim
that Kocharian illegally ordered Armenian army units to break up street
protests against alleged fraud in a presidential election.
Kocharian, who ruled the country from 1998-2008, rejects the accusations as
politically motivated. The indicted generals also deny them.
Housing Prices In Yerevan Rise
August 16, 2019
Armenia - New apartment blocks are constructed in Yerevan, 4Apr2015.
Housing prices in Yerevan have increased by almost 10 percent in the past year,
an Armenian government agency said on Friday.
The Cadaster Committee also reported an even sharper rise in the number of real
estate transactions in Armenia. It said it registered over 16,000 such deals
last month, up by 17 percent from July 2018.
This may well explain a 9.8 percent year-on-year rise in the average cost of
Yerevan apartments recorded in July this year. The committee gave no such
figure for other parts of the country where housing prices have always been
much lower than in the Armenian capital.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian was quick to seize upon these numbers,
portraying them as a further indication of public confidence in his government
and Armenia’s future. According to Pashinian, the domestic housing market was
stagnant before the 2018 “Velvet Revolution” as many Armenians had trouble
finding buyers for their homes due to a high rate of emigration from the
country.
“Now the opposite process is underway: buyers are many and sellers few,”
Pashinian wrote on his Facebook page.
Pashinian also said that the overall volume of mortgage lending in Armenia more
than doubled in the first half of 2019. “This is a record figure for at least
the past decade,” he said.
Increased remittances from Armenians working abroad may have also contributed
to the higher real estate prices. According to the Armenian Central Bank, they
rose by 13 percent, to $705 million, in January-May 2019.
Also, economic growth in the country appears to have accelerated in the first
half of this year after slowing down to 5.2 percent last year. The Armenian
economy expanded by 7.5 percent in 2017.
Press Review
August 16, 2019
1in.am pounces on a remark by former President Robert Kocharian’s lawyer Samvel
Khudoyan that “liberated lands” around Nagorno-Karabakh are not an integral
part of the unrecognized Artsakh Republic and that Kocharian therefore cannot
be faulted for bringing troops to Yerevan from those areas in February-March
2008. The publication highly critical of Kocharian says that the lawyer must
have coordinated with the ex-president before making such a “statement
endangering national security.” “Such statements can periodically be heard from
Baku which questions Artsakh’s borders,” it says.
Lragir.am reports that campaigning has officially began for upcoming local
elections in Karabakh. “The candidates for the post of Stepanakert mayor are
already known,” writes the publication. “The election campaign is drastically
different from all previous campaigns with the absence of the government
factor. People in Stepanakert, who are accustomed to one or another influential
government figure being behind a candidate, had been at pains to find out whom
Bako Sahakian and others support. But it then emerged that a revolution of
sorts occurred in Artsakh. The authorities there were not toppled. They were
simply forced to give up their political monopoly … These are ideal conditions
for elections which will be held in the absence of a political monopoly for the
first time in many years.”
“Aravot” comments on the worsening situation with garbage collection in
Yerevan. The paper claims that the problem results from last year’s “change of
the [government] systems.” “The old system was based on an informal circulation
of cash and possible gaps [in its functioning] were closed through shadowy
deals,” editorializes the paper. “Now everything must be open and transparent,
and this will cause problems for some time.” It goes on to urge the Yerevan
municipality to embark on a “comprehensive program of garbage collection” that
will address all aspects of waste management in the Armenian capital.
(Lilit Harutiunian)
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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