Month: June 2022

Armenia’s opposition groups will continue protests aimed at ousting Nikol Pashinyan and will renew their efforts to expand the resistance movement launched in early May, opposition leader and deputy parliament speaker Ishkhan Saghatelyan told a rally in Yerevan’s France Square on Friday evening.

“Rallies and marches will continue. At the same time, we will carry out organizational work to give new impetus to the movement and prepare for a more decisive and crucial stage of the struggle,” he noted.

Saghatelyan says coordination commissions have already been set up in around five regions of Armenia as promised earlier and the protest movement is proceeding according to the plan.

In a change of tactics, the opposition announced plans last week to hold anti-government rallies in Yerevan on a weekly basis.

 Public debates are planned every Wednesday, while opposition rallies are scheduled for Fridays.

“If necessary, we will hold urgent rallies as we did last week. You should always be ready for urgent rallies and acts of disobedience,” Saghatelyan said.

Five off-duty contract soldiers of the Artsakh army were involved in a traffic accident in Armenia late on Friday.

One of them, identified as Nikolay Sargsyan (b. 1981), was killed in the crash which occurred at around 10։30pm, the Artsakh Defense Ministry reported on Saturday.

The four other servicemen were hospitalized with severe injuries.

The cause of the crash was not immediately known.

An investigation is underway.

The relatives of those killed and wounded in a fatal shooting in a village near the town of Aparan in Armenia’s Aragatsotn Province on Saturday staged a protest outside the Aparan police station, demanding a fair probe into the case.

Two Aparan residents, Hamik Mikayelyan and Tigran Harutyunyan, were killed and five others were injured in the shooting in the village of Nigavan on June 19, which the Investigative Committee said was sparked by a dispute between two groups of young men. The shooter, a 32-year-old resident of Yerevan, has been arrested.

Politik.am reported that the men responsible for the shooting are the relatives of Matevos Asatryan, an MP from the ruling Civil Contract party, and the cousin of Deputy Aragatsotn Governor Edgar Parvanyan. The media outlet claimed that the Aparan men were attacked because of swearing at Nikol Pashinyan. The law enforcement agencies likewise insisted that the shooting was not politically motivated.

Speaking to reporters at the protest, Hamik Mikayelyan’s uncle demanded that police properly investigate the bloody incident and hold those responsible for it, including the pro-government MP and the deputy governor, to account.

“I don’t think that the dispute was politically motivated. Now I am applying to Nikol Pashinyan to ensure a fair investigation into the case. Aparan has always been a quiet place, but as long as they [the attackers] remain here, there will be no peace,” the man said.

The father of the other killed young man, Tigran Harutyunyan, also demanded justice in the case.

“A week on, only one man has been arrested. All those responsible [for the shooting] must be arrested and held accountable,” he said.