Friday,
19 Indicted Over Anti-Pashinian Protests
• Gayane Saribekian
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian meets with the heads of the Armenian
police and National Security Service and other officials in Kapan, Syunik, April
21, 2021.
Law-enforcement authorities pressed on Friday criminal charges against 19 of at
least 23 people arrested following Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s visit to
Armenia’s Syunik province marred by angry protests.
Most of them were freed by Yerevan courts or the Investigative Committee pending
investigation.
The committee asked judges to sanctions pre-trial detentions of eight local
government officials and other Syunik residents accused of hooliganism,
disruption of public order and/or assault on security officers. It brought the
same charges against 11 other men.
The detainees included Mkhitar Zakarian, the mayor of the towns of Agarak and
Meghri making up a single local community. Scores of local residents insulted
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and blamed him for Armenia’s defeat in last
year’s war in Nagorno-Karabakh as he walked through the towns on Wednesday
morning.
In a statement announcing the indictments, the Investigative Committee claimed
that the “hooligan acts” were organized by Zakarian for the purpose of hampering
Pashinian’s “movements and meetings with the population.” It said the protesters
linked to the mayor not only defied but also pushed and hit law-enforcement
officers at the scene.
Zakarian denied the accusations through his lawyer, Gayane Papoyan. He walked
free late on Friday after a Yerevan court refused to remand him in pre-trial
custody.
The investigators also indicted Menua Hovsepian, a deputy mayor of another
provincial town, Goris. They said Hovsepian “organized and led” local residents
who threw eggs at Pashinian’s motorcade and tried to stop it when it passed
through Goris.
Hovsepian, who also denies any wrongdoing, was set free earlier in the day. One
of his lawyers, Armen Melkonian, confirmed reports that the vice-mayor claims to
have been beaten up by police officers while being transported to the
Investigative Committee headquarters in Yerevan. He said another lawyer has
formally complained to prosecutors about the alleged torture.
Melkonian also represents nine other Syunik residents charged with hooliganism.
He insisted that they too are innocent.
The arrests condemned by opposition groups began hours after Pashinian described
the protests as a “violation of the law” and told Armenia’s police and National
Security Service to respond to them “in a tough manner.”
While condemning the protesters for swearing at Pashinian, the state human
rights ombudsman, Arman Tatoyan, accused the prime minister on Thursday of
issuing unlawful orders to the law-enforcement agencies.
Pashinian’s political allies insisted on Friday that the ongoing criminal
investigation is not politically motivated or directed by the government.
“The prime minister simply brought the law-enforcers’ attention to the hooligan
manifestations, which I think was necessary,” said Lilit Makunts, the
parliamentary leader of the ruling My Step bloc.
The elected heads of virtually all major communities in Syunik issued late last
year statements demanding Pashinian’s resignation. The mayors of Meghri, Goris
and the industrial town of Kajaran were subsequently prosecuted on separate
charges rejected by them as politically motivated.
Kocharian Again Predicts Two-Horse Election Race
• Astghik Bedevian
Armenia - Former President Robert Kocharian meets with supporters, Yerevan,
April 21, 2021.
Former President Robert Kocharian has again expressed confidence that an
emerging opposition force led by him will be Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s
principal challenger in parliamentary elections expected in June.
“I am conscious of the fact that I will be the main target [of Pashinian’s
attacks] and am proud of having deserved this regime’s hatred,” Kocharian told
supporters at an indoor meeting held earlier this week.
“The elections will be bipolar,” he said in remarks publicized on Friday. “What
the authorities are doing now with regard to me or a possible alliance to be led
by me is propaganda directed at me. They are thereby contributing to the
formation of this pole.”
Kocharian again accused Pashinian of misrule and incompetence which he said led
to Armenia’s defeat in last year’s in Nagorno-Karabakh.
“It’s going to be like that on all fronts. The government dodging responsibility
must be stripped of power as soon as possible,” he said.
Alen Simonian, a deputy parliament speaker and close Pashinian associate,
shrugged off the ex-president’s claims, saying that the ruling political team
does not regard him as a major election contender. His chances of returning to
power are “very slim,” Simonian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Simonian said this is why Kocharian has failed to cobble together a broad-based
electoral alliance. He argued that opposition groups such as businessman Gagik
Tsarukian’s Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) and the former ruling Republican
Party have declined to team up with the ex-president.
Kocharian did not shed light on the composition of his bloc. He said only that
it will start campaigning immediately Pashinian steps down to pave the way for
the early elections aimed at ending the post-war political crisis in Armenia.
The Yerevan daily Hraparak claimed on Friday that Pashinian is again having
second thoughts about holding the elections after visiting southeastern Syunik
province and facing angry protests there on Wednesday. It said he is now
negotiating with Tsarukian on the possibility of cancelling the vote and
striking a power-sharing deal instead.
Lilit Makunts, the parliamentary leader of Pashinian’s My Step bloc, denied the
newspaper report. “There have been no discussions on election cancellation not
only with other parties but also within our political team,” she told
journalists.
Another senior My Step lawmaker, Nazeli Baghdasarian, said Pashinian will likely
tender his pre-election resignation next week.
Armenian Labor Minister Resigns
Armenia - Labor and Social Affairs Mesrop Arakelian speaks at a press conference
in Yerevan, December 25, 2020.
Armenia’s Labor and Social Affairs Minister Mesrop Arakelian resigned on Friday
after only five months in office.
He was promptly relieved of his duties in a presidential decree initiated by
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian. The latter did not comment on the development.
Pashinian appointed Arakelian as labor minister on November 20 as part of a
cabinet reshuffle that came amid opposition demonstrations in Yerevan sparked by
Armenia’s defeat in the war with Azerbaijan.
In a Facebook post announcing his resignation, Arakelian said that his main
mission was to oversee urgent aid programs for residents of Karabakh severely
affected by the six-week war and that he has largely accomplished it.
“I am grateful to my colleagues in Armenia an Artsakh for their cooperation,” he
wrote.
The 36-year-old economist, who previously served as an adviser to Pashinian and
ran a consumer credit firm, gave no other reasons for his resignation or shed
light on his plans.
Arakelian is a senior member of Arakelutyun (Mission), a small political party
which is part of Pashinian’s My Step bloc controlling the Armenian parliament.
It is not yet known whether the party will remain allied to the prime minister
in the run-up to snap parliamentary elections expected in June.
Armenian President Blocks Another Government Bill
• Marine Khachatrian
Armenia - President Armen Sarkissian talks to residents of Davit Bek village
during a visit to Syunik province, April 20, 2021.
President Armen Sarkissian has challenged the legality of yet another government
bill which has drawn strong criticism from Armenia’s leading university and
National Academy of Sciences.
The bill passed by the National Assembly late last month would empower the
Armenian Ministry of Education to appoint five of the nine members of the
governing boards of all state universities.
The boards elect university rectors and make other key decisions. Most of their
current members were chosen by university faculties as well as student councils.
In a joint statement issued on April 5, Yerevan State University (YSU) and the
National Academy of Sciences said the new rules would effectively enable the
government to appoint rectors and end their competitive elections. They said
this would violate a clause in the Armenian constitution which entitles
state-funded colleges to a high degree of autonomy.
Sarkissian’s office likewise said late on Thursday that some of the bill’s
provisions seem “contentious in terms of constitutionality.” It announced that
the president has therefore refused to sign it into law and chose instead to ask
the Constitutional Court to rule on its conformity with the constitution.
The office also said Sarkissian believes the bill does not offer “systemic”
solutions to chronic problems facing Armenia’s education sector. “The law does
not fully reflect modern trends in the development of science of education,” it
said in a statement.
Commenting on the president’s decision, Education Minister Vahram Dumanian
insisted on Friday that his ministry, which drafted the law, did not propose any
unconstitutional changes.
“We will continue to work within the framework of existing legislation,”
Dumanian told reporters. “We will work within the framework of whatever law is
in force.”
Armenia - Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sports Vahram Dumanian
gives a press conference, .
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and his associates, among them young scholars,
pledged to give universities more freedom from the government right after they
swept to power three years ago. Critics say that the changes pushed by them
through the government-controlled parliament are meant to do the opposite.
“They would enable the government to seriously intervene in the management of
universities and thereby significantly limit their autonomy,” Menua Soghomonian,
a YSU political science professor, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Earlier this month, President Sarkissian also refused to sign into law three
other bills drafted or endorsed by Pashinian’s government and denounced by
opposition groups.
They would give more powers to a state body overseeing the Armenian judiciary,
triple maximum fines for defamation and change the country’s electoral system
ahead of snap parliamentary elections expected in June. Sarkissian asked the
Constitutional Court to pass judgment on two of these measures.
The bills in question will take effect only if they are validated by the court.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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