Armenia attorney: This locationing tool should have been used when country’s leadership was campaigning

YEREVAN. – If the leader of the country had not been busy with campaigning with his political team, we would not have had engagement parties, operating factories, and this would not have led to such austerity. Attorney Aleksandr Kochubayev said this at a press conference Wednesday, referring to the adoption of the bill on gathering data about phone calls and movement of persons in Armenia.

Kochubayev noted that no matter how much the government declares that its goals are sincere and this bill is about human health, there are clear concerns. “In particular, when the whole world was fighting this epidemic, there was a [constitutional referendum] campaign in Armenia,” he explained. “If the leader of the country had not been busy with campaigning with his political team, we would not have had engagement parties, operating factories, and this would not have led to such austerity. (…). The locationing of these calls will be limited to the state of emergency, but it is unknown how long the state of emergency will last.”

The lawyer emphasized that the adoption of this bill in this period was the result of poor oversight.

According to Kochubayev, this bill is a tool that is too late. “A state of emergency should have been declared and the locationing tool should have been used at the phase when the country’s leadership was busy campaigning,” he concluded.