Monday,
Armenian Captive Sentenced To 20 Years In Azerbaijan
Հունիս 14, 2021
• Naira Bulghadarian
NAGORNO-KARABAKH -- Russian APC and soldiers of the peacekeeping force (L)
patrol in front of an Azerbaijan's army checkpoint near the demarcation line
outside the town of Shushi (Susa), November 26, 2020
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In a ruling condemned by Armenia, a court in Azerbaijan sentenced a
Lebanese-born Armenian national to 20 years in prison on Monday seven months
after he was detained by Azerbaijani forces in Nagorno-Karabakh.
The 41-year-old man, Viken Euljekian, travelled to Karabakh with a
Lebanese-Armenian friend, Maral Najarian, on November 10 hours after a
Russian-brokered ceasefire stopped last year’s Armenian-Azerbaijani war. They
were detained in the Karabakh town of Shushi (Shusha) and taken to Baku.
Euljekian, who lived in Shushi and worked as a taxi driver before the war, was
accused of being a terrorist and mercenary and illegally entering Azerbaijan.
Najarian risked similar accusations before being released and repatriated in
early March.
Euljekian, who has dual Armenian and Lebanese citizenships, was found guilty
after a short trial condemned by Armenia’s government and human rights groups as
a travesty of justice.
Liparit Drmeyan, an aide to Armenia’s representative to the European Court of
Human Rights (ECHR), said Euljekian did not have access to lawyers chosen by him
and the Azerbaijani authorities failed to substantiate the charges leveled
against him.
Drmeyan said the Armenian government will appeal against the verdict in the
Strasbourg-based court. “We are convinced that Azerbaijan has violated Viken
Euljekian’s rights,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Euljekian is one more than 100 Armenian soldiers and civilians believed to
remain in Azerbaijani captivity. Yerevan regularly demands their immediate
release, citing the terms of the truce agreement.
Baku has branded the remaining Armenian detainees as “terrorists” not covered by
the agreement. At least 42 of them are facing what the Armenian Foreign Ministry
condemned last week as “trumped-up criminal charges.”
Armenian Ruling Party Schedules Post-Election Rallies
• Naira Nalbandian
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian holds an election campaign rally in
Gegharkunik province, June 12, 2021.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s Civil Contract party confirmed on Monday that
it is planning to hold daylong rallies in Yerevan for four consecutive days
right after Armenia’s June 20 general elections.
Municipal authorities have allowed it to simultaneously rally supporters in the
city’s two largest squares from June 21 through June 24. Each of those rallies
can start at 10 a.m. and last until midnight.
Campaigning in Yerevan’s Malatia-Sebastia district on Monday, Pashinian urged
supporters to converge on Republic Square on June 21 to celebrate his and his
party’s election victory which he said will mark another “revolution” in Armenia.
Neither he nor his associates explained the rationale for staging more
demonstrations in the following days.
“When the purpose of the events is decided … we will announce that,” a senior
Civil Contract figure, Vahagn Hovakimian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Hovakimian also did not clearly explained why the ruling party has reserved two
squares at a time for demonstrations. No Armenian political force is known to
have done that before.
Some opposition figures and other critics of the Armenian government speculated
that Pashinian is making contingency plans for his possible defeat in the early
elections. In that case, they claimed, his supporters could put pressure on the
Central Election Commission or provoke violent clashes with opposition
protesters to have such vote results annulled.
Pashinian has repeatedly said on the campaign trail that he expects his party to
garner at least 60 percent of the vote.
Former President Robert Kocharian warned late last month that the opposition
Hayastan alliance led by him will stage street protests if the Armenian
authorities rig the upcoming elections. Other opposition forces have also not
ruled out post-election protests.
Armenia - Supporters of former President Robert Kocharian and his opposition
alliance attend an election campaign rally in Yerevan's Nor Nork district, June
9, 2021.
Both Hayastan and Civil Contract have secured the Yerevan municipality’s
permission to organize rallies on Friday, the last day of official campaigning,
raising fears that violence could break out even before election day.
Hayastan was initially allowed to hold its June 18 rally until 8 p.m. Acting on
the opposition bloc’s appeal, a Yerevan court ruled that the rally can last
until 9 p.m. The Civil Contract demonstration is to start later that evening.
Aram Vardevanian, a Hayastan spokesman, criticized the ruling party’s decision
to schedule its Republic Square gathering for the same evening. He said the
Armenian police warned the municipality against authorizing rival rallies in the
same venue and on the same day.
“We will do everything to prevent clashes,” insisted Civil Contract’s Hovakimian.
Nina Karapetiants, a civil rights activist, said the risk of such violence will
be high and the two bitter rivals are recklessly ignoring it.
Karapetiants also denounced Pashinian’s “unacceptable” pre-election rhetoric and
accused the prime minister of adopting the “worst” campaigning methods of
Armenia’s former leaders harshly criticized by him.
“The lies and insults will not help him,” she said. “I think the people will
make a right choice.”
Pashinian Ally Downplays Leaked Audio
• Naira Nalbandian
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian holds an election campaign rally in
Yerevan, .
A senior member of Armenia’s ruling Civil Contract party on Monday played down
the significance of a leaked audio recording in which a pro-government town
mayor criticizes Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and calls for his resignation.
The audio clip which was posted on news websites on Sunday night purportedly
revealed a conversation between Minister of Territorial Administration and
Infrastructures Suren Papikian and Diana Gasparian, the mayor of Echmiadzin
affiliated with Civil Contract.
None of them disputed the audio’s authenticity. It was not clear whether they
spoke during the ongoing parliamentary election campaign or earlier this year.
“I have realized that for the sake of the state he [Pashinian] must go,”
Gasparian can be heard telling Papikian. “Let the team choose someone else, let
them choose you -- you are the most understandable person with the highest
approval rating -- so that this situation is defused.”
“He got carried away,” she adds. “His psyche probably can’t cope anymore, his
nerves have probably frayed. Let him retire and take rest. We can’t carry on
like this.”
The 32-year-old mayor seems upset with Pashinian’s treatment of his political
allies. “He is forgetting that there are people with values and principles
here,” she says. “He can’t trample them underfoot every time because of not
controlling his emotions.”
Papikian, who also manages Civil Contract’s election campaign, responds by
telling Gasparian to “calm down” and “don’t do anything today.” He then promises
to talk to Pashinian the next morning.
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and acting Mayor Diana Gasparian (L)
attend a local festival in Echmiadzin, 7 October 2018.
Papikian declined to comment on the leaked audio as he accompanied Pashinian on
a campaign trip to Armenia’s southern Ararat province on Monday. The prime
minister also refused to answer questions from journalists.
Lilit Makunts, who leads the ruling party’s group in Armenia’s outgoing
parliament, dismissed the recording as a “very unimportant subject.” “We are
focused on our campaign,” Makunts told reporters.
“We have not discussed that issue. I have no comment on the recording,” she said.
Campaigning in Ararat towns and villages, Pashinian continued to deliver fiery
speeches and lambaste Armenia’s former leaders challenging him in the elections.
He again brandished a hammer symbolizing a popular “steel mandate” which he says
he needs to continue ruling Armenia with a more firm hand.
“With the steel mandate we will take out all rusty nails, including in Ararat,”
Pashinian told supporters rallying in Masis, a small town just south of Yerevan.
Pashinian pledged to “purge” the state bureaucracy and wage “political
vendettas” against local government officials supporting the Armenian opposition
after launching his party’s election campaign last week.
Opposition figures have accused him of threatening his political opponents with
violence and other abuses.
Armenian Church Hits Back At Pashinian
Armenia -- The head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Catholicos of All
Armenians Garegin II, leads a Christmas mass at St. Gregory the Illuminator's
Cathedral in Yerevan, January 6, 2021.
The Armenian Apostolic Church rejected on Monday what it called “unfair
accusations” voiced against it by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian during the
ongoing parliamentary election campaign.
Pashinian attacked the church during at least two of his campaign rallies held
late last week.
“They are telling us that we are trying to discredit the Armenian Apostolic
Church and traditional values,” he told supporters rallying in the town of Sevan
on Saturday. “No, those values are discredited by corrupt clergymen.”
Pashinian claimed that those clergymen are part of Armenia’s traditional
political, intellectual and spiritual elites that “did everything” to prevent
the 2018 “velvet revolution” that brought him to power or make it a failure. He
said the country needs another revolution to get rid of these elites.
The church responded to the accusations with a statement released by its
Echmiadzin-based Mother See.
“The attitude of the current government towards the national and spiritual
values of the Church is known to our people,” it said. “The behavior of the
Acting Prime Minister towards the Church and the clergy should be considered in
this context.”
“The Armenian Church, despite all kinds of obstacles and the attitude of the
authorities, will continue to implement its soul-saving, patriotic mission in
the life of the Armenian people,” added the statement.
Last Thursday, the ancient church’s supreme head, Catholicos Garegin (Karekin)
II, and bishops based in Armenia expressed “deep concern” over they described as
“hate speech” spread by political forces running in the June 20 snap elections.
In a joint statement issued after a meeting in Echmiadzin, they urged all
election contenders and “especially the ruling party” to refrain from offensive
statements and threats of violence, warning that such rhetoric could lead to
violent unrest.
Armenia’s human rights ombudsman, Arman Tatoyan, likewise denounced Pashinian
and his rivals for resorting inflammatory rhetoric on the campaign trail. He
singled out the prime minister’s pledges to “purge” the state bureaucracy and
wage “political vendettas” against local government officials supporting the
Armenian opposition.
Pashinian has had frosty relations with Garegin throughout his three-year rule.
They deteriorated further late last year after Garegin joined President Armen
Sarkissian, opposition leaders and prominent public figures in calling for his
resignation after Armenia’s defeat in the autumn war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
In January, Pashinian and his associates declined to attend a Christmas mass
celebrated by Garegin in the country’s largest cathedral.
And on April 24, the Armenian pontiff and other high-ranking clergymen were
conspicuously absent from an official ceremony to mark the 106th anniversary of
the Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey. For the first time in many years the
annual ceremony attended by Pashinian and Sarkissian did not feature a
traditional prayer service.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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