Month: June 2022

Opposition MP Armen Gevorgyan, a permanent member of the Armenian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), on Tuesday delivered remarks at the debate “Recent challenges to security in Europe: what role for the Council of Europe?” held as part of the PACE summer session. His full statement is provided below. 

“Thank you.

Mr President,

In the past decades our organisation has tried to pursue issues like minority rights, gender equality, diversity, and other important issues for democratic statehood. But we also failed to address more fundamental aspects of democratic peace. That is the protection of the right to life and the right of people’s self-determination.

It seems to me, we have began to treat human destiny rather selectively and very often in the context of geopolitics.

Some debates in this Assembly show that we have allowed political expediency to make suffering of some Europeans more important than for other Europeans. To make the right of some European people’s for self-determination unconditional, while for others only decorative.

We have put much effort to abolish capital punishment in member states, but turning a blind eye on how high-tech industry creates new deadly weaponry and is freely sold in the market. I have never heard of any investigation or fact-finding missions to explore how certain member states use prohibited types of weaponry, such as, for example, white phosphorus bombs.

Certain member states have demonstrated that by the using of force and money some issues can be resolved while ignoring fundamental rights and freedoms.

Mr President, it has become a strange tradition for our organisation to avoid discussing violations of certain fundamental rights and freedoms, explaining that the Council of Europe does not deal with security issues. This is a very unacceptable position which essentially encourages new violations.

Where and how it is decided that the right of people to self-determination is outside the interest of the Council of Europe? That any military aggression by any member of our organisation that kills thousands of innocent people is not our mandate?

I try and fail to understand how can the European Parliament speak the language of values and human rights by adopting the relevant language and resolutions, for example, on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, while the Council of Europe and its bodies, including this Assembly, hide behind political correctness and fail to call things by their name.

Mr President, I’m raising all these issues with only one aspiration: to contribute to the development of our organisation and making it a better fit to our troubled world. I believe it’s through the re-establishing of an environment of respect trust and dialogue that we can make our organisation a relevant forum for international cooperation and the protection of values of the free world.

Thank you.”

Opposition Homeland Party leader Artur Vanetsyan, who resigned from the Armenian parliament on Tuesday, says he and his party will not remain involved in the opposition resistance movement aimed at toppling Nikol Pashinyan and his government.

Vanetsyan also announced the breakup of the Pativ Unem alliance formed by his party and the former ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) in his resignation statement, adding the Homeland Party will operate only outside the parliament from now on.

In an interview to the Public TV Company later on Tuesday, Vanetsyan highlighted that his team and the resistance movement remain committee to a common goal, but their methods of achieving it are different.

“At this point, I think it would be more effective to continue our struggle for the same goal in different ways. The resistance movement has announced the start of a second stage. I will go a different way to achieve the same goal. I can’t help but be there fighting for the same goal that I am doing,” the politician said, adding his team will set its own agenda for the protest campaign.

Vanetsyan did not elaborate on his plans, adding they will be revealed during his further activities.

The Armenian opposition will hold a debate in a park near France Square in central Yerevan on Wednesday evening.

The debate will focus on the scandalous audio recording involving the acting head of the Supreme Judicial Council and Sunday’s deadly shooting in Aragatsotn Province, the opposition Hayastan alliance reported.

The speakers are Hayastan faction secretary Artsvik Minasyan, human rights activist Ruben Melikyan and lawyer Benik Galstyan.

After the discussion, lawmakers from the Hayastan and Pativ Unem blocs will talk to the people and answer their questions.

Lawyer Aram Vardevanyan, an MP from the opposition Hayastan bloc, on Tuesday reiterated his call to prosecute the acting head of the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) overseeing Armenian courts, Gagik Jhangiryan.

His comments came after suspended SJC head Ruben Vardazaryan on Monday released a secretly recorded audio of his conversation with Jhangiryan, who can be heard warning the official to resign or face criminal charges.

“Criminal proceedings should be launched against Gagik Jhangiryan,” Vardevanyan wrote on Facebook, citing the domestic law.

“Gagik Jhangiryan cannot participate in the hearings on disciplinary action against Ruben Vardazaryan, including in decision making. Given the first circumstance, Jhangiryan must inevitably be suspended, which will apply to all proceedings.

“The reputation of the judiciary, especially the SCJ, and the legitimacy of the 2021 elections have been irreparably damaged,” Vardevanyan said.

Activists staged a protest outside the Armenian National Center for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) in Yerevan against the activities of biolaboratories in the country.

Members of the KAMQ NGO and the liberation movement were among the protesters led by Ara Zohrabyan, who heads the opposition Zartonk (Awakening) party.

Zohrabyan says that eight biolabs funded by the U.S. Department of Defense are operating in Armenia, including in Lori, Shirak, Tavush and Syunik Provinces, which may pose a serious threat to Armenia’s security and the health of Armenians.

“You must have heard rumors that biological weapons are being developed in these laboratories, agents for bioweapons are being made,” he told reporters, adding that the public has not taken the matter seriously.

Zohrabyan called attention to the uproar which arose in Ukraine and Georgia over the activities of the laboratories. In particular, he recalled that U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland confirmed the operations of U.S.-funded biological research facilities in Ukraine. In addition, there was a scandal in Georgia over experiments on 240 patients with hepatitis C.

The protesters demanded a transparent investigation into the operations of biolabs in Armenia.

“Our country is not a testing ground and dignified Armenian citizens are not guinea pigs,” Zohrabyan said.